A promise to remain carbon-neutral – who can do that?
Get your pencils out — this is a Pop Quiz:
- Name the single country in the entire world which can legitimately claim to be carbon neutral.
- Name the country which measures its success not in GNP, but in GNH – Gross National Happiness.
If your answer to both questions is Bhutan, you are 100% correct, and you get a cookie.
Bhutan has made the amazing commitment to remain carbon neutral forever. So far they have been entirely successful. In fact, up to this point they have been significantly carbon-negative. They are creating more clean energy than they can actually use, and so they are selling the excess to their more populous neighbors, mostly to India.
They have a plan for how to sustain that record, a plan outlined in this very informative and entertaining TED talk.