By John Upton: A U.S. push to smash open India\u2019s fast-growing solar market could end up hurting the climate.<\/p>\n
That was the message from 15 U.S. environmental groups in a letter sent Wednesday to U.S.\u00a0Trade Representative Michael Froman, just days before\u00a0his office plans to move forward with a World Trade Organization complaint against India\u2019s solar rules.<\/p>\n
As we\u2019ve told you before, India is going gangbusters for solar \u2013 a commendable trend in a coal-reliant country. Solar installations doubled in 2013, driven largely by ambitious federal energy policies.<\/p>\n
U.S. solar component producers, notably GE partner First Solar, want in on that action, but Indian officials are trying protect and nurture a domestic solar industry to help provide jobs for its impoverished populace.<\/p>\n
Now American enviros are coming down heavily on India\u2019s side in the dispute. \u201cWe are writing to express our grave concerns that the United States plans to increase uncertainty in the Indian solar market by asking the World Trade Organization (WTO) to establish a panel to evaluate whether India\u2019s national solar program violates international trade rules,\u201d write the environmental groups, including 350.org, the Center for Biological Diversity, Greenpeace USA, and the Sierra Club.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe this misguided claim could delay growth of the solar market in India and harm the future of solar deployment at a time when growth of renewable energy has never been more critical,\u201d the letter continues. \u201cOur global climate will remain in danger if only some countries develop renewable energy industries while others continue to rely on fossil fuels. In order to avoid catastrophic climate impacts, all countries must urgently be investing in renewable energy technologies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Froman\u2019s office plans to move its complaint against India forward at the WTO on Friday, Reuters reports. Meanwhile, India has been investigating America\u2019s own solar policies in anticipation of a potential counter-complaint.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By John Upton: A U.S. push to smash open India\u2019s fast-growing solar market could end up hurting the climate. That was the message from 15 U.S. environmental groups in a letter sent Wednesday to U.S.\u00a0Trade…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-highlights-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=329"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":836,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329\/revisions\/836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tibetnature.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}