Coal goes green in India
India plans to tax carbon. Specifically, on Friday the world’s fourth largest polluter announced that it will tax coal to finance a national fund that will support renewable energy projects like solar and wind farms.
The news is encouraging and comes just a couple of months after the disappointing Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, where India China, Brazil and most of the developing world fought against UN-mandated cuts in carbon and green house gas emissions.
In his annual speech to parliament on Friday, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said the tax was “a credible strategy for combating global warming and climate change,” reports Bloomberg News.
The Indian government plans to impose a clean energy tax of 50 rupees ($1 / €0.79 / £0.70) a metric ton on domestic and imported coal. Mukherjee did not say how much money would be raised by the new tax.
Indian power producers use about 375 million tons of domestic and imported coal. Based on that metric the new tax could raise about 25 billion rupees, Bloomberg writes, citing an estimate compiled by Emergent Ventures, a climate change consulting company.
In his speech Mukherjee also said:
Harnessing renewable energy sources to reduce dependence on fossil fuels is now recognized as a credible strategy for combating global warming and climate change.
Ahead of Copenhagen, India had vowed to cut its carbon intensity, or the amount of carbon dioxide released per unit of gross domestic product, by up to 25 percent by 2020.
India’s latest federal budget, for the 2010 – 2011 period, also includes tax incentives to grow solar, wind and geothermal power generation.
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