Disasters kill people & erode development gains.

Climate change science has taught us that human activity is responsible for adverse meteorological phenomenon like unfavourable weather patterns and degradation of geophysical assets like land or underground water aquifers. This erodes the neat distinction, drawn earlier, between natural disasters – earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, subsidence, floods, epidemics- which could only be managed not prevented, and […]

COP 28 can not ignore the need to own-source Energy like coal for India

The Kyoto Protocol of 1995 enshrined the principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” as the cornerstone for climate action. Ending the degradation of the global commons remains a priority as evidenced by 193 parties to the Paris Agreement filing nationally determined targets, with 151 parties submitting enhanced targets in 2021. This remains a transformative moment […]

Reality check: Coal CCUS Key for Energy Transition

Energy transition projections remain open ended about phasing down coal mining and coal-based power generation. This is, unsurprisingly, the most difficult segment of the transition for India because coal reserves are the only fossil energy resource India has in abundance. Ten coal producers account for about 90 percent of global coal production—China-50 percent, India-10 percent, Indonesia-7 […]

IPSOS Global Survey 2023 on Climate Action Perceptions

Seventy percent of Indians believe that their country is a world leader in climate action—the highest endorsement across 29 advanced, upper- and lower-middle-income economies excluding China, as per the IPSOS Global Survey. On average, only 31 percent globally and 41 percent of Swedes and 38 percent of Singaporeans share this belief about their own countries. […]

India Energy Transition: Who will lead?

By 2070, India will go from spewing 2.2 billion tons of carbon dioxide annually to none at all — a near nirvana like, post-industrial wonderland called “Net Zero” — when a country’s carbon emissions from humans, animals and decaying plants equal the amount of carbon that forests and trees absorb to grow. Any additional emissions […]

A Bright Red Line Between Social and private costs and Benfits

In India, biomass—the fallen leaves in your garden, crop residue at your farm, organic garbage, and waste from your house—are just shy of around one third of the available primary energy, mostly in rural areas, where agricultural residue is generated. Some of it is collected and stored for later use. Burning biomass in a cook […]

Decarbonisation Vignettes

Differential time horizons for net zero imply that there is no universal price for mitigating carbon emissions. Decarbonisation plans are proliferating globally, including in India. First came the plan to electrify vehicles, even before electricity supply standards had reached international levels of 0.999 reliability. Next, the near-term goal of having 50 percent of electrical energy […]

On the Freeway to net zero

India, like the rest of the world, is not yet visibly on the freeway to net zero. Greta Thunberg and others of her persuasion believe this is because young people—future victims of climate change—are not in charge. This could well be true. But consider the recklessly fast-forwarded track for Artificial Intelligence (AI), Fintech, or social […]

Energy Transition Under fiscal and Institutional stress

There is a 93 percent probability that at least one year between 2022-2026 will dislodge 2016 as the warmest year. More worryingly, the probability of a temporary increase in temperature more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900) which was zero in 2015, has now increased to 48 percent. The warning bell is ringing, and it […]

Decarbonization: Institutionally adrift

The late Atal Behari Vajpayee (Prime Minister of India in 1996 and 1998–2004) had a keen ear for technology. After listening patiently to complicated, technologically correct proposals, he could bring such high-level discussions down to earth by wondering how these “best in class” options could actually be implemented on the ground. Best in class options […]

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