#ParisClimateConference: India

From what I heard on NPR last night, reinforced by stories like this and this, India wants to have its cake and eat it too on climate change.

Indian Prime Minister Narenda Modi says that Indian should be lumped more with sub-Saharan Africa than China on climate regulations. As part of this, he notes that fair chunks of India aren't even electrified.

But, once the Paris talks are done, just watch and wait.

Soon enough, Modi will bitch that India's not drawing nearly as much foreign investment as China, even though it should be treated just like China, or words to the similar.

It's an issue over which India has grown increasingly schizophrenic in the last decade or so, in my opinion, and is only likely to become more so. It has a "tar baby" relationship with China, and even more with the corporate West's relationship with China.

Meanwhile, even including the Potemkin Village aspects of China's economy, India continues to do worse. The infrastructure is worse. The graft and other corruption, because it's petty, diffuse, and multilayered, is worse than China's strongarm shakedowns.

And, the BJP's idea, even if not directly espoused by Modi, of trying to win, or rather, "win," a population growth war with China is simply nuts.

If ANYTHING in the developing world is anti-climate change, it's unchecked birthrates.

And, tragically, and stubbornly, for all his pronouncements about climate change, Francis the Talking Pope won't do anything about stopping papal and Vatican opposition to birth control.