Show l Indias India's miniscule carbon footprint Sarah Winward inward Contributing Writer Beneath billboards glittering with stars and advertising Blackberry cell phones a family of six puts out their fire made with cow dung and settles down on a sheet of tattered cloth for a good goodnights goodnight's goodnights goodnight's goodnights goodnight's nights night's sleep on the side of the busy city roads India boasts a population of 11 b billion people which is almost 17 percent of the entire worlds world's population A few of these billion are entrepreneurs working their way to the top of the world market and the others are left swept to the side of the overcrowded streets Population density in inthe inthe inthe the busy country varies widely Indias India's census in 2001 said there were as many as people e per square mile living in the district of Delhi In and there are as few as two people per square mile The people of India are drawn like magnets to the large cities leaving a alot alot alot lot of the land uninhabited The electricity in India is distributed much like the population is The heavily populated cities run nun on an electricity grid that covers a a lot of the city but the power is unstable and only provides electricity for select locations along the grid Very often the power is out due to glitches in the seemingly new luxury A report by the Electricity Employees Federation of India states that a world population totaling 63 billion in nations together consumed 1394 trillion kwh vh of electricity in inthe inthe inthe the year 2002 representing a per capita consumption of 2211 kWh The corresponding figures for India were 1050 million people and billion kWh Vh which means that India uses percent electricity per capita than anyone else in the world That billion kWh Vh is also said to be concentrated in the city centers leaving a large majority of the people in the dark The Indian Ministry of Power is pursuing a program called Power for All By 2012 which plans to show the same amount of electric growth the country has seen in the last fifty years and do it ag again in in just four With a drastic rise in the amount of energy that willbe will willbe willbe be available to India in the next few years the amount of pollution that follows will rise accordingly On the contrary with electricity grids being expanded to many of the rural areas there will no longer be a aneed aneed aneed need for the many coal burning factories that are among the countries top polluters Most of the population in India do not notown notown own cars and use bicycles for transport which means their carbon footprint is already a lot smaller than the majority of people in inthe inthe inthe the world With the amount of pollution they avoid by public transport they can afford to increase their emissions output at such a arate arate arate rate without releasing more greenhouse gases than other industrialized countries India keeps great pride that they can urbanize without Westernizing by still having strict power rations and being efficient with their energy |