In a second “No,” India’s Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh said at a March 31 IEA meeting on climate change that “net zero” carbon is “pie in the sky,” no matter when you pledge it for. At a meeting supposed to be preparatory to the COP26 in Scotland last month, Singh said, “I would call it, and I’m sorry to say this, but it is just pie in the sky. What we hear is that … 2060 is far away and if the people emit at the rate they are emitting the world won’t survive, so what are you going to do in the next five years…. You have 800 million people who don’t have access to electricity. You can’t say that they have to go to net zero. They have the right to develop, they want to build skyscrapers and have a higher standard of living; you can’t stop it.”
China’s minister Zhang Jianhua also spoke at that IEA meeting, but when invited to a formal pre-meeting for COP26 – by the U.K., remember, which is its host – China declined the invitation.
John Kerry, in Delhi last week for the same IAE meeting, “happened to meet” Sergey Lavrov, who was in India on the world’s real business (see separate report). Kerry was perhaps trying to gauge whether Russia would attend Joe Biden’s April 22-23 “Earth” (or “dearth") summit. But at the IEA meeting Kerry appeared to be criticizing long-term pledges to net-zero carbon, like China’s 2060 pledge. “Avoid the happy talk and recognize that this challenge is global,” Kerry chided.
The real challenge is the power to develop, as Minister Singh made clear. The only power that can meet that global challenge is nuclear fission and, as soon as possible, fusion. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-56596200
