“How can India
reach the top HDI while keeping the ecological
footprint sustainable?”
WHY INDIA?
India represents 1.3 billion people:
the largest free society in the world, by a long way.
India has reasonable stability of governance, because
governments are elected in the most effective election
system in the world. The government of India is clearly
focused on development. In the past decade or so, over
270 million people have risen from poverty to middle
class standards of living in India: a mind-boggling
achievement. Consciousness and concern about
global issues such as environmental pollution are both
immediate and present long-term in the Indian public
discourse. Melting Himalayan glaciers, a very long
coastline where sea-level rise is a constant concern,
extreme weather events and critical dependence on the
annual behavior of the Monsoons for subsistence, all
pose urgent priorities.
But India is also where opportunity beckons. Alternative
paths to achieve high Human Development Index are
urgently needed. All of the issues in the Sustainable
Development Goals cited above, are clearly seen in the
Indian context. Hence solving the problem in India is
most appropriate.
But it does not stop there. The similarities with the
realities in Africa and Central America mean that
templates developed in India can very well be
transferred to address issues worldwide.
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India's position in Human Development Index and Ecological
Footprint
The above story shows the problem
that we are trying to solve. High "Social Progress
Index" comes with extremely high per capita use of
energy. The "easiest" way to use more energy is to use
fossil fuels, whether imported or domestic. The use of
fossil fuels has a terrible impact on the environment
and hence on health. Importing fuel has a far worse
compounded effect, that is seen in the 3 linked figures
below. The amount of oil imported by India has risen
from under 10 million tonnes per year at the start of
the 1970s, to around 180 million tonnes per year by
2012: a factor of 18. The price of a barrel of crude oil
in US dollars has risen from around $3/barrel, with huge
and sharp fluctuations, to a level of around 90 to 100
dollars per barrel today: a factor of 30. The number of
Indian rupees needed to buy a US dollar has risen from
around 6 per dollar in the 1970s, to approximately 72
today, a factor of 12.
Readers can come up with their own conclusions. One
conclusion is that India cannot rise steadily without
stabilizing the cost of energy, and the only way to do
that is to become energy self-reliant. Since fossil
fuels are limited, and nuclear energy availability will
rise far too slowly, India has to turn to other
renewables. The solution that we present is distributed,
rural generation of solar, biogas and wind power. By
"solar" we do not mean just photovoltaic, although that
appears to the easiest and quickest starting point. The
scale-up should probably occur with solar thermal means,
including a wide variety ranging from water heating, to
liquid fuel generation from vegetation using anaerobic,
intensified solar heating. This is the basis of the
Roadmap for Rural Energy Self-Reliance that was
mentioned at the outset.
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The 1st
Abdul Kalam Conference will start a biennial
tradition to generate practical and exemplary
solutions to large societal challenges. India must
rise in human development index (HDI) from today’s
0.6, to the 0.9 of a developed nation, while
avoiding the terrible cost in ecological footprint
(10 hectares of resources per person for developed
nations versus India’s 0.8, and the sustainable
limit of 2.5). A look back at 1989 shows India’s
amazing rise towards the dream of a “developed”
India by 2020. Six Working Groups will come together
at this first conference, inspired by this record,
to sharpen the plans to tackle the massive
challenges ahead. The first group titled Human
Indicators versus Ecological Footprint, will
integrate the efforts of the other five groups:
Countering
Climate Change, Rural Energy Self-Reliance, Space
Resources, Technology for Security, Freedom,
Equality, Justice and Fairness, and Global
Alliance For Wellness and Healthcare.
We are
seeking thought and action leaders in all these
groups. The conference will be hosted by the Indian
Institute of Technology in Chennai, with the Taksha
Foundation as the US partner. The groups will
synergize researchers, practitioners, educators,
planners, business leaders and administrators, from
India, the United States, and other nations.