Where India’s and China’s energy consumption is heading

HYDROCARBONS CAN STILL make the heart race—especially if you are short of them. That is evident under a sweltering midday sun on the outskirts of Noida, an Indian boomtown adjacent to New Delhi, where hundreds of poor women, clad in bright saris, recently gathered for a celebration. They were marking what Narendra Modi’s government hopes will be the beginning of the end for an age-old poverty trap: collecting firewood and cow dung for cooking.

The women say they, and often their children too, spend hours every day hunting for firewood. They risk being troubled by snakes and predatory men and miss out on opportunities for more productive work. Studies cited by the government suggest that half a million Indian women die each year as a result of respiratory illnesses caused by inhaling noxious smoke. So the public has responded enthusiastically to a campaign this year to use $1.3bn, part of a windfall from the drop in the price of oil (of which India imports 81% of its needs), to provide it with cleaner-burning subsidised liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).

Dharmendra Pradhan, the petroleum...