Although one of the fastest growing economies, India being a developing nation and having a large section of its population under privileged to avail the basic necessities of life, India didn?t agree to commit to the Kyoto Protocol which requires the nations to reduce the emission of greenhouses gases to a particular amount based on various parameters. But on the other hand, ironically, a similar economic South-east Asian country, Indonesia, has pledged to cut the emissions by 26% by 2020 from the current levels.

Now India is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, although it has agreed to increase its energy efficiency by 20% by 2020. On the brighter side India is an active participant of the CDM or Clean Development Mechanism which allows the richer nations to invest in the developing nations with the motive of reducing GHG emissions and thus compensating any pollution produced by the developed economies. Hence, there is a recent advancement in the field of wind energy, solar energy and biomass energy tapping sectors.

It has been reported that India has upcoming solar projects with the objective of producing 20 gigawatts of power. In order to support such clean energy projects, India has started imposing green taxes on the fossil fuels. It has done with coal and has steadily being doing so on gas and petroleum as well.

Of course there have been mild protests by its citizens. One may thing it is good for the environment but we shouldn?t also forget that India is a poor nation and this very excuse has allowed India to not commit to the Kyoto Protocol in the first place. So what should it do?

I am not saying putting fossil fuels and discouraging the citizens to use fossil fuels is bad. But at the same time the nation should give an alternative to the common folks. If you making petroleum expensive in the struggling country, then you should have an alternative options, like the ethanol fuel revolution in Brazil, so that the citizens are not hurt or are affected with their economic activities.