Changes in India over 27 years
First, the population has grown 44% from 100 crore to 144 crore,
But the annual growth rate of the population has fallen sharply — from nearly 2% to below 1%.
Second, the per capita GDP of Indians grew six times, from $400 to $2,400.
The average lifespan of an Indian has increased from 61 years to 70 years
Third, Indians living below the multi-dimensional poverty line decreased from 43% to 11%.
However, 11% of 144 crore is still a very large number of 16 crore people.
Impact of climate change
The debate on historical emissions (advanced by developing countries) versus current emissions (advanced by the developed world) is closely linked to the population versus people divergence.
This is because the per capita consumption of both natural resources and manufactured products directly correlates with the per capita income of the people.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries with a population slightly less than that of India consume nearly 16 times of what the whole of India consumes.
This has been the major cause of global warming over the past few decades, resulting in unpredictable weather changes.
In turn this has adversely affected the poor in developing nations more severely than people in developed nations with much better housing and civic infrastructure
With 11% of its people still below the poverty line, India will continue to accord priority to economic growth over climate change mitigation measures, and rightly so
That responsibility lies majorly with the OECD countries, and now increasingly with China.
Successive Indian governments have negotiated hard at global forums on India’s right to grow economically to alleviate poverty as early as possible.
Global South and growth
The Narendra Modi government has articulated this even more forcefully by expanding the definition of the Circular Economy framework in the G-20 New Delhi Declaration of September 2023
It intent to maintain the economic growth of the Global South nations, a term used for all developing nations as a group.
India is looked upon by the nations of the Global South in their efforts to maintain economic growth in their respective nations as the first priority, followed by measures to achieve net zero.
India has fixed the year 2070 to achieve this, compared to the European Union’s target of reaching net zero by 2050.
But India would strive for zero poverty within the next decade.
The next few decades will see developing nations focusing on eradicating persistent poverty among their people rather than responding to population growth doomsday “experts” who have so far not been proved right
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