Publications : Opinion & Commentary
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Climate Change: India’s Commitments
In the cover story of Pravasi Indians, Rajesh Chadha discusses the critical need to address climate change immediately.Cereals Under Climate Threat
Rising incidents of heatwaves are alarming scientists, while countries face declining wheat yields and output. Could India have been an exception?Mobilising Climate Finance: Imperative of Carbon Pricing
Carbon pricing can be an effective tool not only for raising resources over the medium term for mitigation and adaptation, but also for decarbonising the Indian economy in a relatively more predictable manner.Going Green: Can the Global South Develop Without Fossil Fuel?
On this Doha Debates Podcast, Zaki Mamdoo and Rahul Tongia drill down on environmentalism, development and energy equityOverview of Climate-Economy and Energy System Models
Mathematical modelling programmes have become indispensable in climate science and policy research, their applications and accessibility need to be highlighted.What a Climate-Aligned IMF Would Look Like
In light of the IMF approving current Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva for another five-year term, Rakesh Mohan and Mohamed Nasheed share their insights.Developing World Must Raise Own Climate Finance
Developed countries and MDBs can raise just a third of the requirement. Carbon pricing and ETS will have to play a bigger role.Even Under Capitalism, There is Hope for Climate Change Solutions
Vikram Singh Mehta reviews the book book Climate Capitalism: Winning the Global Race to Zero Emissions by Akshat Rathi.India’s Energy Transition
Laveesh Bhandari and Rajat Verma examine the fiscal implications that are to be borne in mind to arrive at equilibrium in the taxes.Three’s not a Crowd for Improved Climate Action
Pooja Ramamurthi argue that partnerships with bridging powers are increasingly vital to unpicking North-South gridlocks and effective climate cooperation.This is What’s Slowing Down the Clean Energy Transition
With Big Oil's 2050 forecast that places oil and gas at the centre of energy basket, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve net-zero carbon emissions targetsInterview | Does India Need a Climate Change Resilience Authority?
India is experiencing extreme weather conditions. Is it time for a climate change resilience authority?Was CoP-28 a Cop-out or Did the Conference Achieve Something?
CoP meetings have routinely talked of the need for a fair and just transition, consistent with the principles of "common but differentiated responsibilities" but they never discussed how to apply it in practice.Podcast | COP28: Spotlight On Indian Climate Diplomacy
In the last one decade, India has cast itself as being part of the climate solution—which in turn has created the space for diplomatic negotiations.Climate Diplomacy Must Begin at Home
It is now time to invest in a strategic capacity so that India's climate diplomacy is better equipped to transform prevailing climate commitments into action.A Cap-and-Trade System will Help Slash Emissions More Efficiently
A key feature of a cap-and-trade system must be a steady reduction in allowances per unit of output over time, calibrated to the net-zero target, write Montek Singh Ahulwalia and Utkarsh Patel.India’s Global Climate Strategy
India’s progress in driving the need for climate mitigation and adaptation has been commendable and swift. A key question is whether results in terms of reduced carbon emissions will arrive.Current Green Transition Solutions Disregard Social and Political...
Institutions have to be built that facilitate global cooperation, skill development and technology transfer and also enable the mediation of the domestic and international conflicts that have been inevitably aroused.Environment Policy Needs Federalism to Play a Big Role
How well central and state-level administrations coordinate climate action will determine key outcomes, writes Anoop Singh.The Climate Crisis: What is the Global Way Out?
In the ‘era of global boiling’, challenge can only be met if we act in political, economic, financial concert, says Vikram Singh Mehta.India is Adapting to the Shifting Climate Terrain
India has a unique opportunity to use the G20 presidency to drive climate cooperation as crises abound and the desire for deep climate action is dwindling.Interview | Govt Listens When Think Tanks Talk. They are Growing in Clout...
India's aspiration to become a global climate leader is getting a boost from an expanding ecosystem of homegrown policy and research institutes. Here are 10, new and old. | An interview with Laveesh BhandariMapping the Climate Transition by Identifying Policy Interventions
RBI’s report lays down a buffet of choices. Policymakers must now pick what is nutritious but also conforms to political taste.The IMF’s Turn to Lead on Climate
While the International Monetary Fund has made great strides on climate change in a short time, emerging markets and developing economies need resources to invest in resilience more urgently than ever.India has Big Clean Energy Goals – So Why is it Banking on Coal?
India's renewables targets, while ambitious, will still not be enough to meet rising power demand, comments Rahul Tongia.Podcast | Path to Climate Justice in a Net Zero World | ft. Tejal Kanitkar...
In this India Energy Hour podcast episode, Rahul Tongia discusses how we can design equitable models for climate action.Does Nuclear Power have a Role in our Climate Change Strategy?
Yes, nuclear power has a role in climate change strategy, but we will have to rethink several aspects of our current policy on this form of energy before it can meet its promise.Interview | Growth Of Renewable Energy High In India, But Pace Not Enough
The lesson for us is that our supply system must be sufficient and flexible to allow such new technology to come in. And that raises another set of issues: Montek Singh Ahluwalia tells NDTV.India’s Fossil Fuel Lessons for Net Zero
As the transition to clean energy becomes imperative, India’s tryst with hydrocarbons can offer a roadmap of what not to do.Where’s the Capital for Climate?
At COP26, the PM set a clear target that India, with the help of global investment, will achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2070. For this it will undertake actions such as greater use of renewable energy, reduced energy intensity, etc. It's a tough task, but the process is on and ...India’s Transition to Green Energy will have a Significant Impact on...
Another effect of the energy transition that needs to be considered is the impact on employment; in some states, a significant proportion of the people are engaged in coal mining. The effect on employment may not be severe but it will be challenging because it is concentrated in a few states.The Path to Decarbonisation in the Wake of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Against this international backdrop, India must pivot the needle of its energy compass towards short-term energy security and long-term decarbonisation. Irrespective of who is to blame for global warming, India cannot afford to develop first and clean up later.Four Steps to Make India’s Energy Transition Less Painful
India must make a fiscal transition alongside the energy transition. Here's how it could make a start.COP27: Joining the dots between Binsar and Sharm El-Sheikh
To resolve the environment-development conflict, begin with local initiatives that can be scaled-up and provided market access through support of government and collaborative linkages with corporates, NGOs and specialists, writes Vikram Singh Mehta.Was COP27 a Cop-Out?
The loss-and-damage fund is welcome but other vital issues were left hanging. India’s G20 presidency may help us find clarity.Podcast | Are Current Climate Initiatives Unfair to Developing Nations?
Rahul Tongia speaks to Kai Ryssdal of NPR Marketplace about how current climate initiatives are unfair towards developing nations.Green Cess Needs a Makeover
A graded form of an ecological tax must be levied on the value of outputs of sectors that are polluting, write Rajat Verma and Ganesh Sivamani.Nature Contributes to Economic Prosperity and Well-Being
Experts emphasize that while a statistic such as GDP does a good job of showing the value of goods and services exchanged in markets, it does not reflect the dependency of the economy on nature, nor its impacts on nature, such as the deterioration of water quality or the loss of a ...India needs climate action targets for next 10 years
A 10-year-plan will help increase public consciousness and generate a public debate on aspects of the strategy that may seem contentious, write Montek S Ahluwalia and Utkarsh Patel in MintThe Ukraine Conflict has Raked up Old Dilemmas
Vikram S Mehta writes: Issues related to energy security, climate change mitigation have been brought to the forefront.जलवायु बिगड़ने के साथ भारत का...
भारत में जलवायु परिवर्तन के कारण हो रही घटनाओं को अब ‘अप्रत्याशित’ नहीं कहा जा सकता है इसलिए सरकार को उनके लिए वैकल्पिक तरीकों के साथ तैयार होना पड़ेगा.Power Sector must Brace for Trouble as Climate Worsens
India can no longer label extreme climate events as ‘unforeseeable’. The Union govt must prepare for them with alternate approaches.Coping with Fiscal Effects of Energy Transition
CSEP scholars Laveesh Bhandari and Asheerwad Dwivedi analyse how governments’ (both Centre and State) revenue from coal, oil and natural gas, will be affected over the next two decades as India shifts toward renewable energy sources.We Need Wardens in Our Eco Parks
Take the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). It is assigned the task of monitoring air and water quality, and to also check commercial or industrial units that may pollute them. It is also allocated the task of supporting State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs), which carry out the monitoring, permitting and enforcing functions ...Wanted: New leaders to tackle climate change challenge
COP 27 should be led by a collective of experts, who can accelerate the implementation of the action plan towards Net Zero, says Vikram Singh Mehta.India Needs a Coordinated Approach for Decarbonisation of Economy
Long-term planning process must be changed and an autonomous, credible agency must provide independent advice, monitor progress.Does the Glasgow Pact Make Climate Finance Available to Us?
We must push hard for funds at next year’s CoP and do what’s possible at home to enhance flows of capital into green projects.The Glasgow Summit on Climate Change: What Has it Achieved?
A promising start on emissions reduction, but big emitters must do more and India needs to work out a detailed plan of action.Why India needs a Ministry of Energy
It would not alter the existing roles and responsibilities of the various ministries that oversee petroleum, coal, renewables and power, but would identify and handle all of the issues that currently fall between the cracks created by the existing structure.Net Zero: Pledges Are Not Enough
There are several problems with the so-called 'carbon neutrality' pledges. These can only be understood properly if they are accompanied by details and given tight accounting norms.Net Zero Carbon Pledges Have Good Intentions. But They are Not Enough.
Reaching zero is important, but there is no universal consensus on when the date of net zero should be. The “sooner the better” remains a common refrain.Ahead of CoP 26 Meet: A Negotiation Strategy
The right approach is for each country to focus not on the net zero date but to indicate its emissions reduction trajectory consistent with its development imperatives.The Inside Story of India’s Coal and Power Crises
Simple arithmetic will show that power plants consumed more coal than they received, but given that generation wasn’t exceptionally high, does this mean the problem was supply?Check green damage: India needs to strengthen environmental assessments
Comprehensive Environment Impact Assessments (EIA) are essential to determine the project’s benefits and externalitiesIndia’s road to clean energy goes via natural gas
Decarbonisation is the endgame, but India must first ‘green’ its fossil fuel energy basket by increasing the share of natural gasWhy India needs a plan for climate talks
Irrespective of the direction in which climate talks move, India must announce a national target for phasing down coal-based generation of electricity.India needs to change the thermal power story to survival of the fittest,...
The proposals for solving the current stranded capacity crisis should start a process of big picture thinking to achieve better collective outcomes on multiple long-term objectives. Doing so requires some decisive changes to the status-quo. How we got here: The chronic factors behind recent woes Contrast the following energy and peak deficits ...Can natural gas be a catalyst to build a lower-carbon world?
The short answer to the question is yes; natural gas can be and has already become a catalyst in some countries, which are transitioning to a low-carbon economy. The more important question though is can this model be replicated in other countries with gas as a catalyst? Several factors have been responsible ...India does not have the luxury to develop now and “clean up”...
New Year’s Day is an opportune occasion for reflection and re-emphasis. I summarise below 10 energy-related suggestions that I made last year, in part to remind and in part to influence the government’s agenda. One, the energy conundrum is how to square the circle between the government’s commitment to provide universal access ...Challenges ahead for clean energy
Who doesn’t want clean or ‘green’ energy? But what if this costs a bit more? We might quickly find many people’s appetite for renewable energy (RE) is lower, especially if the worry cited is something as invisible, long-term, and global as CO2 emissions that impact climate change. RE is making enormous progress ...A patchy green – energy policy in India
Arvind Panagariya did not list the “draft national energy policy”, prepared by the Niti Aayog and circulated for comment on June 27, as one of the important achievements of his tenure as Deputy Chairman in the various interviews that I read, on the day he announced his resignation. Perhaps, because the document ...Clean energy can cement Indo-US ties
When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Washington, US President Donald Trump and he will find numerous areas of disagreement. High on that list will be climate change. Early this month, Trump put a stick in the eye of the world by announcing that he will pull the US out of the ...How India can meet its ambitious renewable energy targets
A systemic approach that focuses on enabling the environment for more renewable energy will help India to meet its target of generating 175 gigawatts of energy by 2021. At the recently concluded Marrakesh Conference, most countries stood by their commitments made in Paris at COP21 for reducing carbon emissions. India’s ratification, on ...Think you’re being eco-friendly by using cloth bags? Think again
The most important factor for cloth bags to actually be “eco-friendly”: reuse 171 times. That’s how many times one reportedly has to reuse a cloth bag to justify the extra energy consumed for its manufacture compared to a disposable plastic bag. While the exact number may vary with the thickness of the ...India has done little to bridge energy supply-demand gap
India has done very little in the last few decades by way of harmonizing its governance structures to secure its energy needs despite a surging demand to fuel its growing economy, and the crisis may worsen in the coming years, Brookings India chairman Vikram Singh Mehta said at a policy discussion forum ...India-US relations: Energy and environment
The energy market has undergone a major structural change since 2015. The most dramatic manifestations of this change are Saudi Arabia’s decision to forego the role of “swing producer,” the consequential drop in the price of oil, and the recent pronouncement in Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030″to reduce its dependence on petroleum. Underlying ...Sustainable development goals must be linked to energy and environment
Niti Aayog needs a sharp focus on weakening the link between energy demand and environmental degradation writes Vikram Mehta Niti Aayog has placed on the internet a 25-slide presentation entitled “Creating a movement for change”. It has set out a thematic roadmap for quintupling the GDP from the current $2 trillion to ...India and Climate Change – Spoilsport or just late to the party?
India may have been late to the emissions party, but with innovation and rapid development, it can make a disproportionate contribution to emissions reduction. India’s carbon reduction pledges (the Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs) have been labelled as medium or even weak by many global observers. Global op-eds talk of India ...Delhi’s bar on cars: Using a sword instead of a scalpel for surgery
Enough has been written (mostly against) the idea to limit cars in Delhi, by license plate. Will it work? Can you enforce it? Will it lead to more sales of alternate number of cars? And, most importantly, are alternatives such as public transport ready, especially considering issues of first/last mile? Much of ...Any progress on climate change will depend on innovation and global...
The climate-change relevant question is, how will the continuing compounded advance of technology impact the energy sector? How do we square this circle? On the one hand, the world has come together to tackle the threat of global warming. More than 150 countries have set out their intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) ...Will India accept legally binding agreements at COP21?
As world leaders gather for the global COP21 climate negotiations. Many may feel it is now or never. But the question remains, who is supposed to contribute how much toward emissions reductions? India’s Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDC) submission has targeted a measurable (33-35 percent) improvement in emissions intensity (per GDP) versus ...Cleaning coal instead of wishing it away
The World Bank recently announced that short of exceptional circumstances, they would no longer fund coal in developing regions. The U.S. and other nations are also contemplating, if not making, similar choices, driven in part by concerns about climate change. This view may be impractical, if not myopic, given that at least ...The Green Budget
This column first appeared in the Indian Express, on February 2, 2015. Like other products of the Brookings Institution India Center, this is intended to contribute to discussion and stimulate debate on important issues. The views are those of the author. In the aftermath of the Republic Day India-US summit and against the backdrop of ...A story of the clean energy fund
The finance minister announced in his budget speech that he would enhance the resources of the “clean energy fund” by doubling the cess on coal production from Rs 50 per tonne to Rs 100 per tonne. This fund was set up in 2000 to incubate, encourage and develop innovation in clean energy. ...Getting down to the energy business
This may be the right political moment to resolve the dilemmas surrounding the energy policy. Energy sits at the nub of every politician’s deepest dilemma. How to meet the demands of the electorate for affordable and reliable fuel without pushing government finances into a deep hole? In the specific context of India, ...Reflections from Binsar
Talent, money and policy must be harnessed to search for the optimal development-environment balance The tragedy in Uttarakhand cannot be overstated. It is a tragedy of monumental proportions. For me, there is a personal dimension. I have a home in the forest sanctuary of Binsar which is 40 miles north of Almora. ...