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The largest energy plant in the world is being built in India. In an area of barren desert in western India near the Pakistani border, Adani Green Energy Limited (or AGEL) is building a sprawling solar and wind power plant that will cover more than 200 square miles. It will be five times the size of Paris and will produce enough electricity to power 16 million homes.

The Khavda Renewable Energy Park will cost about $20 billion to build and will take about five years to complete.

The success of the plant is critical to India’s efforts to reduce pollution and meet its climate goals. India is the world’s third-largest energy consuming country. Even though its energy use and emissions per person are less than half the global average, its enormous population offsets that advantage and its expanding economy and ongoing modernization are driving rapid growth of energy demand. Energy demand has doubled since 2000 and 80% is still being met by coal, oil, and solid biomass. India uses massive amounts of coal, and, in fact, the Adani Group of companies is India’s biggest coal importer and a leading miner of the fossil fuel. Adani represents two sides of the coin.

More than 600 million people in India will be coming into middle and upper income over the next 10 to 15 years and they will have increasing energy needs. India is in a race to develop clean energy capacity. If it simply follows the torturous path that China, Europe, and US all have done, the prospects for the global climate are bleak.

Building the world’s largest clean energy plant is just a first small step in the necessary direction.

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A coal billionaire is building the world’s biggest clean energy plant and it’s five times the size of Paris

Photo, posted February 25, 2010, courtesy of Bhavin Toprani via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

Everyone contributes to climate change through the generation of greenhouse gas emissions, but individual contributions vary greatly. A study at the Paris School of Economics has determined that just 1 percent of the population is responsible for nearly a quarter of global carbon emissions growth since 1990.

The study estimated emissions from individuals’ consumption and their financial investments, and also from government spending in their country. Individuals are responsible for carbon emissions as a result of their own activities, but they also bear their share of responsibility for the emissions of the firms that they own or invest in.

In 2019, people living in sub-Saharan Africa produced an average of 1.8 tons of CO₂ equivalent per capita. In North America, the average per capita was more than 10 times higher. Meanwhile, the top 10% of North America’s emitters produced more than 75 tons each.

From 1990 to 2019, the bottom 50% of emitters was responsible for just 16% of emissions growth, while the top 1% was responsible for 23%. The top 0.1% saw emissions growth of 80%.

The inequality between rich and poor is driven more by inequality within countries than by inequality between countries. This is particularly true for wealthy countries. For example, over the study period, the top 1% saw their emissions grow by 26% while emissions actually declined 5-15% among low and middle earners even in wealthy nations.

Economic inequality drives a lot of the dynamics taking place within many countries around the world, and this even applies to pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

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Global carbon inequality over 1990–2019

Photo, posted December 11, 2017, courtesy of Bernal Saborio via Flickr.

Earth Wise is a production of WAMC Northeast Public Radio

The world’s largest energy plant

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Carbon Inequality | Earth Wise

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