Cool Roofs - A small answer to Global Warming

Everyday we hear about Global Warming and we feel singled out thinking what we can do as individuals.  We stay in India, where the average temperature varies through out the year.  We have very hot summer and very cold winter.  These days due to Global warming (or cooling) the temperature have broken their records either side.  Now the summers are approaching.  People are getting busy buying coolers and ACs to lower the temperature at their office and home.  All these additions will further aggravate the Global warming situation as more power would be required to power them.  As summer approaches, the power generation due to hydro power plants is reduced due to water shortage in the reservoir and increased demand for water consumption and irrigation.  So more and more power is derived from coal and natural gas fired plants.  This means more carbon dioxide is pushed into atmosphere.     

 Apart from that, it would also mean increase in the requirement of peak load.  The peak load is the high load at particular points rather than average power demand. This is the time when the demand for power is maximum i.e morning and evening.
So what can we do to fan out the heat.  One thing which Stephen Chu, US Secretary of Energy, promoted was painting your roof white.  The roof is always exposed to sun rays in day time.  Just like earth (as they made of same materials) they capture heat in the daytime and release them in the night time.  So the even the nights in the summer are very hot.
The pavements and the roofs in an city (currently covers around 60-70% of city area) form a effect called urban heat island effect.  Due to this, the city is hotter than the outskirts and surrounding villages.  As they are black, they absorb around 70% of the heat incident on them.  So whats the solution, paint them white.  This will increase the reflectance of the roofs.  This will also reduce the cooling needs of the room and the building.  Current estimates of the savings is around 15-20% of the energy demand.  Thats a substantial savings.  Also as a result, less energy is needed and less CO2.  Thus reducing your carbon footprints.  Will this technology work even in winter.  I would say no.  The places where there is high snow fall, should avoid it coz less sunlight means less evaporation of snow.  But most of India, is not facing snow and they can do their contribution with whatever they can.  What do you think.