(August 4, 2011) In its quest to promote green energy and reduce the world’s carbon footprint, the United Nations has so distorted the economics of power production that it is set to subsidize over three dozen coal plants in India with some $5.3 billion in “carbon credits.” Environmentalists are up in arms and the UN boffins say they are just following their rules to get Western CO2 “polluters” to pay developing country power producers to reduce their carbon emissions – the Indian power producers will use super-efficient power stations. To illustrate just how upside down the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism has made power markets, if an Australian company, for example, burns Australian coal it will be taxed $23 per tonne, but if the same coal is burned in India the burners will get billions of dollars in subsidies. The Brussels-based CDM Watch calls the deal “absurd.”

See the following press coverage of this bizarre case:

Andhra Pradesh at the forefront of Indian ‘coal rush’; Energy generated from new coal-power stations in this single state could eclipse emissions from an entire country

India lobby calls for subsidy end

UN CDM board rules out clean coal project freeze

Carbon credits for India coal power plant stoke criticism