"Environmental activism can delay or even stop development projects in developing countries.
... I live in India. With a population of 1.3 billion, nearly 300 million live in poverty, excruciating poverty compared to Western living standards.
... Yet it has a long way to go before it can become like nations in the developed West.
One of the chief hurdles is bringing reliable, affordable electricity to all the people of India.
Uninterrupted electricity is still a luxury that few Indians enjoy.
... Hydrocarbon projects in particular face hurdles from well-organized environmental activists backed by Western funders.
A number of developmental projects in India are currently on hold despite clearance given by the country’s Green Tribunal, an Indian equivalent of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
One case is the hydrocarbon project at Neduvasal, located a few hundred miles from my native town in Tamil Nadu.
... Several other key energy projects have been delayed or abandoned because of strong environmental activism in this particular part of India, thus depriving the region of economic progress.
... Some of these were given a go-ahead by India’s Supreme Court and considered safe by technical experts, yet they were delayed or remain on hold because of the protests.
It takes lots of effort and time to raise people above the poverty line.
Sometimes anti-developmental protests—by environmental groups funded by radical elements abroad—cancel the much-needed developmental projects quite easily through grassroots misinformation campaigns.
... the impact of these economic hurdles is much more significant in developing countries where they can impact the poor and those very close to the poverty line.
A few months of COVID-19 lockdown in India sent millions back into extreme poverty, in which they cannot even afford three meals a day.
... International climate policies, especially the Paris Agreement, have the potential to disrupt the Indian economy.
... India’s former Chief Economic Adviser to the Prime Minister, Arvind Subramaniam. ... called their collective efforts “Carbon Imperialism.”
... no substitutes can make up for the lost energy from fossil fuels.
Renewables are more expensive and less reliable.
... recently India announced that it will invest $55 Billion in clean coal (high technology, reduced emission) projects over the next ten years.
... For the 300 million poor in India, the environmental groups—funded by radical elements in the United States and Europe—are the biggest obstacle to becoming middle-class households—healthy, prosperous, and long-lived."