Articles & Op-Eds

GoI must support an independent benchmarking scheme to evaluate our environmental performance and track progress. Much debate has happened on the recently released Environmental Performance Index (EPI), in which India was ranked the worst country in the world. The Government of India (GoI) has rejected the ranking and called it [...]

New disasters can happen if countries decide to unilaterally try technological fixes to global Warming. With record-breaking heatwaves hitting many parts of the world over the last few months, scientific circles have been hotly debating whether countries should prepare to deploy geoengineering technologies to deal with such climate emergencies. Should [...]

Faith-based organisations can be strategic actors in supporting environmental action. The climate crisis demands collaboration between countries and communities We Indians love to speak about our religious and cultural heritage of protecting the environment. And, we do have a vast heritage to boast about. Our sacred texts are full …

There is no contradiction between increasing coal consumption in India and implementing a just transition in the coal districts and states. On March 28, 2022, an extremely important and unstarred question was asked by Priyanka Chaturvedi, member, Rajya Sabha, which was replied to by Pralhad Joshi, Union minister of coal. [...]

We have entered a new age of heat extremes. Concrete and glass-heavy urban buildings are a major hazard India is searing. Large parts of the country are in the grips of unbearable heat and heatwaves. March this year was the hottest March on record, and March-April has witnessed a record [...]

Another arms race will divert resources Another arms race will divert resources from poverty, pandemic and environment crisis. In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Tesla CEO Elon Musk recently called on the US to increase its domestic oil and gas production to cut-off imports from Russia. While new oil [...]

The climate watcher has produced nothing for the general public, except for a press release and a set of headlines. Scientists are good at science but bad at communicating it to the masses. This is precisely why the gap between the scientific understanding of the climate crisis and policy responses [...]

How to read biennial forest surveys? The best way is decadal data produced by same methods India State of Forest Reports (ISFRs) are published every two years. And, every ISFR shows an increase in the forest cover compared to the previous one. ISFR 2021, released last week, too shows an [...]

Who’d have guessed that a 49.6°C temperature would be recorded somewhere in a normally frigid Canada? Now wildfires, caused by the extreme heat, have reduced its tiny town of Lytton to ash. To put things in perspective, the maximum temperature ever recorded in Delhi is 48°C. For decades, scientists have [...]

Exactly three years back, single-use plastics (SUPs) took centre stage in India when PM Modi, on June 5, 2018, announced that the country would completely phase out these products by 2022. Now, barely a year before the deadline, the Union environment ministry has issued a draft notification to impose a [...]

A storm is brewing on the climate diplomacy front that India needs to navigate carefully to avoid becoming a fall guy. The issue at hand is the pledge by countries to achieve “net zero” emission by the mid-century. Over 120 countries have already announced their intention to achieve carbon neutrality [...]

The private sector in India has traditionally avoided engagement on climate issues publicly. But this seems to be changing. On November 5, 2020, 24 leading companies signed a ‘declaration of the private sector on climate change’ to tackle the climate crisis. This is an important beginning as the private sector [...]