At the ongoing United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP27, India released its long-term low-carbon development strategies. Low-carbon development of India’s electricity systems is crucial because the power sector accounts for 45% of the country’s total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (based on emission estimates published by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change). The power sector is a key driver for decarbonising nearly all major energy-intensive sectors as it enables the shift to renewable energy-based electricity from the current fossil fuel–based processes.

Call for action on climate finance, international technology transfer, and capacity building is India’s central agenda at COP 27 and has been our focus at past COPs as well. So far, there is some information and discussion and certain action points on climate finance; however, there is little clarity with respect to technology transfer mechanisms and capacity building.

The ongoing transition from fossil fuel to green fuel is a giant step that every country is willing to take irrespective of its challenges—in a bid to achieve the net-zero emissions goals by 2050. Large-scale electric vehicle (EV) adoption is one of the ways of achieving these ambitious goals. However, the challenges associated with conventional lithium-ion battery (LiB) technology—a key component of EVs— threaten to slow down the adoption of EVs at a mass level.

India has the fourth largest installed capacity of wind energy in the world, with the addition of 41 GW as of June 2022. However, this figure is quite low when we consider India’s potential of 695.5 GW at 120 m hub height and 302 GW at 100 m hub height. To unlock the true potential of wind energy in India and generate power efficiently, current wind farm designs need to be optimised. Increasing the hub height and optimising the positioning of turbines are two options that play a huge role in efficient power generation and land utilisation.

The embracing of rapid urbanisation for better lifestyles has led to mindless concretisation, proving to be one of the biggest threats to the outdoor temperature in cities.
Commonly known as the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, this localised phenomenon causes a rise in the land surface temperature (LST) as materials absorb and retain heat. This leads to a series of direct and indirect impacts on citizens, biodiversity, and emissions.

What is un-natural in today’s context is that in just 200 years, there’s been a 40% increase in carbon dioxide which has already caused warming of 1 degree. Not only is the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide higher than what scientists have observed in 800,000 years, but current warming on Earth is occurring ten times faster than normally seen during an inter-glacial period.

Traffic and transportation surveys are essential to gain a clearer perspective on issues such as gridlock at major junctions and lower-than-forecasted metro ridership. In fact, these surveys are important to identify the root causes and develop traffic mitigation measures.

India announced its net-zero target for the year 2070. Long-term projection models are expected to play an important role in developing India’s strategies to achieve this target. However, developing such long-term strategies is a very complex and challenging task because of the uncertainties involved in looking at such long-time horizons.