The key is turning to wind, water and solar energy to generate electrical power – making a massive commitment to them – and eliminating combustion as a way to generate power for vehicles as well as for normal electricity use. In order to convert to wind, water and solar, the world would have to build wind turbines; solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar arrays; and geothermal, tidal, wave and hydroelectric power sources to generate the electricity, as well as transmission lines to carry it to the users, but the long-run net savings would more than equal the costs, according to Jacobson and Delucchi’s analysis. If the world built just enough wind and solar installations to meet the projected demand for the scenario outlined in the article, an area smaller than the borough of Manhattan would be sufficient for the wind turbines themselves. Allowing for the required amount of space between the turbines boosts the needed acreage up to 1 percent of Earth’s land area, but the spaces between could be used for crops or grazing. The various non-rooftop solar power installations would need about a third of 1 percent of the world’s land, so altogether about 1.3 percent of the land surface would suffice.

If the world allows carbon- and air pollution-emitting energy sources to play a substantial role in the future energy mix, Jacobson said, global temperatures and health problems will only continue to increase.

BJP suspects an underhand deal between the Manmohan Singh government and the US. The party has questioned if the views expressed in the letter were Mr Ramesh’s “personal views” or was the environment minister “a stalking horse on behalf of a larger lobby”. It is not just in the arena of multilateral agreements that India is likely to come up cropper. Senior negotiators have said that the proposed change “goes completely against national interest”. While the Australian proposal does seek some differentiation between developed and developing countries, it premised on major developing countries like India (along with China, Brazil and South Africa) achieving their emission peak by 2020.

“In agreeing to this, India is putting major impediments to its energy access and jeopardising its growth trajectory.” Currently India emits only 1.2 tonnes per capita of greenhouse gases compared to 20 tonnes by the US. Recently, five independent modelling studies put India’s per capita GHG emissions in 2030-31 between 2.77 tonnes and 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This is well below the global average of 4.22 tonnes in 2005. “If India agrees to this, then it will agree to leave 600 million Indians in poverty,” former negotiator Surya Sethi said.

Since July, the Indian position on climate change has been changing constantly, leaving the negotiators stuck in a blind alley. From a tough stance during US secretary of statea Hillary Clinton’s visit to India to an announcement of a domestic law on emission caps during the Danish prime minister visit to India, New Delhi made important shift in its stance.

The US-China Green Tech Summit November 16-17, 2009, Beijing, China, who emit 41% of the world’s greenhouse gases, must now be world leaders in climate change solutions. Can US-China project-to-project cooperation slow climate change, enhance energy security and protect the environment? The US-China Green Tech Summit brings together senior green tech leaders to discuss project-to-project partnerships, influencing policy and scaling renewable energy and energy efficiency projects as solutions to climate change, energy security and environmental decay. The US-China Green Tech Summit will be held in Beijing, China on November 16-17, 2009.

Topics include Accelerating the Low Carbon Future, Toward Utility-Scale Solar, Clean Coal Technology Partnership and Sustainable Development.

Experts from both countries will deliberate and share ideas on their plans, policy and action on mitigation, forests, adaptation and progress in climate change science. The event will also create an opportunity for a bilateral meeting between Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh and his Chinese counterpart Xie Zhenhua, according to a statement from the ministry.