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India’s coal furnaces present economic and environmental dilemma
glass bangles – photo by lokenrc (source: Flickr Creative Commons)
In India, many factory workers heavily depend on coal power – which can be very environmentally harmful – to make ends meet.
– Al Jazeera English
Glass factories in Northern India provide the South Asian country’s poor with important jobs, yet the furnaces used in glass production are coal powered. Al Jazeera English reports on India’s carbon conundrum as what was to be the deadline for countries to submit their greenhouse gas emissions targets – according to the tenuous Copenhagen accord –’ends’ today.
Emissions from rudimentary industrial furnaces and cooking fires contribute not only to CO2 but also black carbon – commonly referred to as soot. Perhaps 18% of global warming comes from black carbon, which is produced by burning biomass, coal and diesel fuel. According to the following video report by Al Jazeera English, so far efforts to switch small industrial coal burning furnaces to natural gas have not significantly materialized. The process of continuing economic growth in India without polluting as industrialized countries have previously done is a difficult, yet important challenge.
Al Jazeera English – India’s carbon challenge heats up
by Graham Land
Tags: Al Jazeera, black, carbon, coal, economic, emissions, English, environmental, furnaces, glass, India
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