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Pachauri R K , 1999
Journal of International Affairs 53 (1): 101-115
India's energy sector has been receiving a great deal of attention in recent years, particularly since the signing of the Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC) in 1992. In almost every forum dealing with the mitigation of emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs), reference is inevitably made to the problematic prospect of China and India burning huge quantities of coal in the future and adding to the concentration of GHGs in the earth's atmosphere. There are those who feel that these two countries should be persuaded to reduce their dependence on coal through a set of appropriate policies and by harnessing technological developments that would cause a shift toward less carbon-intensive energies in the future. Yet developing countries still have very low levels of energy production and consumption per capita, and a large percentage of their population still do not have the benefit of the goods and services that developed countries have been using for decades. Additionally, a shift from coal to other energy sources would require much higher capital investments as in the case of renewable energy and higher outflow of foreign exchange to finance oil imports. In other words, a reduction in dependence on coal would not favor the economic interests of countries like China and India, at least for the next 15 to 20 years.
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