CO2 emissions

I am concerned about the front page lead article in the Tuesday 01st July 2008 copy of DNA-Money, Mumbai edition labeled: Automakers split on CO2 emissions by Murali Gopalan. Contrary to the pictograph showing CO2 emissions from India being under 20% of that of USA, an attempt is made to promote hype against India emissions by saying "... time bomb ticking away quietly in India ...", "... vehicles are one of the biggest CO2 emitters in India ...", "... homegrown four-wheeler makers want time frame to be set at 2020 ...", etc. Tata Motors have a reasonable position in that timetable should take into account India's economic situation. Mahindra Group feels new reduced emission era is inevitable and India should not lag behind. This is taken care of by importing correct and current technology for which the OECD have their own timetable where developing countries are concerned.

It will be enlightening to study the Crude Oil Statistics posted at: http://petroleum.nic.in > Petroleum Statistics > Basic Statistics > Petstat.pdf. Table-16 clearly shows that for FY07, Petrol sales constitute only about 3% of all oil downstream products, while Kerosene constitutes 7.3% and LPG constitutes 8.3%, these ratios are per volume sold in MMT. So LPG and Kerosene will each give off far more CO2 than Petrol itself. It is very obvious that CO2 emissions from Petrol is a microscopic percentage when coal, gas, wood, bio-mass are considered in addition to oil. I am ignoring the variations in CO2 generation per unit weight of fuel for simplifying the comparisons between various energy sources.

One wonders why the GoI insists on harassing a large majority of citizens when the statistics show the real-money is elsewhere. It is clear that in FY07, over 81% of crude oil downstream products did not constitute petrol, LPG and kerosene. Common sense tells that the focus on balancing prices versus subsidies should be these other products and their taxes. Why this deluge of anti-public publicity by the GoI ? In any case the WPI shows over 13% rise YoY.

There is no doubt that urban air pollution from petrol is a serious issue and needs to be addressed. However, let us not loose sight of the fact that petrol cars are certainly NOT THE BIGGEST CO2 EMITTERS in India and nor is India economic development leading to a global CO2 crisis. We need to develop a 'healthy contempt' for such western hype as pointed out by R. Vaidyanathan on page-26 of the same newspaper. Jai Hind.

An abridged verion of this message appeared in the newspaper: DNA digital, Mumbai edition, 03rd July 2008, page-14 under INBOX > CO2 emissions.