Even when India achieves a level of development comparable to the US, Europe, and increasingly China, it will likely still have a lower <i>household</i> CO2 footprint, just because it is a much warmer place, with higher population density.<p>The farther north you are and as long as the primary fuel is carbon-based (NG, Electricity from NG or Coal), you&#x27;ll need more of it to survive.<p>Transportation CO2 in India will likely grow, as it is a function of travel frequency and distances for people&#x2F;goods, and it takes basically the same amount of energy per mile everywhere.<p>What&#x27;s really striking to me is that the US per capita CO2 emission probably isn&#x27;t twice as high as China because of our high industrial output, but rather because of our widespread use of carbon-intensive heating and propulsion tech coupled with huge houses and vehicles, and low density cities.<p>All of these CO2 emissions can be turned around by really disruptive low&#x2F;zero CO2 energy generation, both variable renewables and stable baseline to replace coal.  For that we either need mass cheap energy storage, or invest seriously in safe (non-fissile?) nuclear energy, preferably both.