COP29, being held in Baku, Azerbaijan, from Nov 11 to 22, has opened under ominous circumstances. The re-election of Trump as US president looms over the event, reviving memories of his first term when he withdrew from the Paris Agreement, halted climate funding, and significantly slowed international climate progress. During [...]

The most viable path forward is to decontrol the urea sector and allow market competition, similar to other fertilisers. One of the core priorities in this year’s Budget is “productivity and resilience in agriculture”. Under this, the government plans to promote natural farming, enhance the production of pulses, oil seeds, [...]

Coal-rich states in the country can take a cue from Odisha’s new renewable energy policy, which is geared to ensure a just energy transition for the state. By Nikunja B Dhal and Chandra Bhushan Odisha has been playing a central role in meeting the country’s growing energy needs. The state [...]

The environment sector provides a vast opportunity to create new jobs and build a green economy. For this, the environment sector must become an important economic sector. What is the environment sector? How many people work in this sector? How many new jobs are needed to meet environmental challenges like [...]

Just energy transition’ must Shape net-zero pathways for fossil-fuel-dependent districts. In the last 18 months, several modelling studies have been published on the costs and benefits of net zero emissions in India. A few days back, another modelling study was published, which projected that India will require an economy-wide investment [...]

The year 2022 is important. It not only marks the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, but it also marks the 50 years of institutional environmentalism in India. Coincidently, a week after we celebrated 25 years of Independence, the Lok Sabha Sabhapassed the Wildlife (Protection) Bill, 1972, making it the fi [...]

Last month, India protested against its ranking on the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) of 2022, prepared by researchers at the Yale and Columbia Universities in the U.S. The report measures 40 performance indicators across 11 categories to measure the “state of sustainability around the world.” India was ranked last (180) [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]

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 [...]

‘We need to act for the Amazon and act for our planet,’ said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau when fires ravaged the Amazon rainforest in August 2019. He was joined by many Western countries in preaching the virtues of protecting the ‘global common’ for combating climate change. But the Western [...]