governance, political economy, institutional development and economic regulation
India plans to be a “developed” economy by 2047 even as it navigates the economic disruptions of the energy transition. To achieve this goal, India needs consistently higher levels of growth in national income to enhance the pool of investible capital—a crucial input into development. High national income is a necessary but not a sufficient […]
Read More Aspirations must be backed by investments for the energy transitionCarole King, an American songwriter, recorded these lines in 1971: “I feel the earth move beneath my feet, I feel the sky tumbling down…”. King’s emotions were sentimentally human but in retrospect she seems to have been prescient. Back then, environmental activism was nascent. Greenpeace, the activist environmental organisation, was just being founded. Ignore Red […]
Read More Feel the Earth move beneath your feetThe doors are closing As rational beings, we should expect the worst, much before the turn of the century, on account of climate change. Slowing economic growth has reduced the fiscal space to invest in sustainable technology and lowered the appetite of the high-income economies to vacate the carbon space needed for the growth of […]
Read More Glasgow 2021- Reward aggressive carbon mitigationThe tremors from the fall of Kabul are likely to be felt far and wide – most keenly in nations transiting away from traditional identities to modern forms of nationalism. Dampening conflict through developmental assistance as a carrot for winning hearts and minds and measures to empower national governments, have been standard international tools for […]
Read More Picking up the pieces in KabulThe average human lives for 70 years, though women outlive men. A child born over the next five years will still be alive in 2100 when the world tips over into the +2.5° heating trap triggering catastrophic forces of nature – sea level rise washing away entire islands and shore lines, floods from unseasonal rain, […]
Read More Towards a net zero IndiaThis book will jolt you awake, quicken your heartbeat and embed niggling worms of anxiety in even the most sanguine of persons. The author is a gifted, American, climate journalist. He grabs your attention in the very first paragraph and keeps it for the next 231 pages of text followed by 66 pages of notes, […]
Read More Lest we err and waste our planetWhat is it about the Indian elite, which makes them salivate at the thought of global leadership? Barely had President Trump pulled the US out of the Paris accord, that we were exulting at the thought of an “opening” for India at the high table of global climate leaders. The tail can’t wag the dog […]
Read More Avoid the global climate leader trapphoto credit: indiatoday.com. How many 2000 cc plus private diesel cars can you spot in this randomly selected grid lock? Imposing a green cess on large diesel cars is populism at its worst. Less than 5% of private cars fall in this category and they have fairly competitive exhaust parameters because diesel engine technology has […]
Read More Don’t demonise dieselPhoto credit: huffingtonpost.in Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s pledge to give away 99 per cent of his shares in the company, assessed at $45 billion, is the most recent in a series of over 138 billionaires who have signed the “giving pledge” to donate 50 per cent of their fortunes to charity. The 500 top billionaires […]
Read More Let billionaires manage the global commonsParis in December is not quite what it is in springtime. But who cares if someone else is footing the bill! Paris is the venue of the next Conference of Parties (COP), from November 30 to December 11. An annual jamboree that has been trying, since 1992, to limit carbon emissions and save the planet […]
Read More Climate “warriors” head for the December 2015 Paris joust
Opinion India 