BIOGAS PLANTS MAHARASHTRA
Clean energy from biomass
Region Maharashtra, INDIEN*
Around 115 million people live in the Indian state of Maharashtra. They use firewood as their primary source of energy. A household in the region needs around 5 kilos of wood per day.
As the firewood does not come from sustainable forestry, the high consumption of wood in the region goes hand in hand with the deforestation of entire swathes of land. The effects are not long in coming: soil degradation and the progressive desertification of large areas make agricultural use of the land almost impossible. Crop yields of small farmers are jeopardised.
Surface water can only be stored poorly by the silted soils, increasing the risk of flooding.
In the rural areas of the state of Maharahtra, living conditions are made even more difficult for the people.
people are made even more difficult. This is not only due to the fact that ever longer distances have to be travelled to collect firewood. This takes time away from carrying out other important daily tasks.
*india
Climate protection taken seriously - with its own coal phase-out law
According to the 2017 Climate Protection Index (Germanwatch), India is in 20th place, nine places ahead (!) of Germany in the international climate protection ranking.
And although India is one of the ten largest CO2 emitters due to its population of 1.3 billion, its per capita emissions are still at a relatively low level. Nevertheless, the country's emissions are currently rising rapidly. Although around 25 per cent of the increasing energy consumption is covered by renewable energies, there is still plenty of room for improvement.
India's government wants to quadruple the share of renewable energies by 2022. Electricity from solar panels is already the cheapest source of electricity in India today. All coal-fired power plants are to be phased out by 2026. In 58 developing countries, including India, electricity from wind and solar is already cheaper than electricity from fossil fuels. (Bloomberg)
With our climate protection projects from India, we are supporting the climate protection efforts of the central government, which has been a real pioneer compared to Germany for years. Germany, as an alleged climate protection pioneer, is subsidising lignite-fired power generation with billions in taxpayers' money today and will probably continue to do so for decades to come.
