Recurring urban flooding in Bengaluru, India, has brought multiple intersecting development challenges to the forefront. While climate change is a catalyst for flooding, rapid urbanisation has aggravated the problem by neglecting its ecological history. Repeated floods have particularly affected migrants living in the slums, further worsening their already vulnerable conditions. Currently, only about 40% of slums are formally recognized by city authorities, leaving most slum dwellers with limited access to public benefits and basic infrastructure.

The Sustainable Alternative Futures for India (SAFARI) model (Kumar et al., 2021) estimates that the buildings sector—directly and indirectly, through its interlinkages with industry and power sectors—accounts for around 30% of India’s annual energy demand and 26% of the nation’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. With the increasing rate of urbanisation and the associated infrastructure development, this is expected to rise further.

Electric vehicles (EVs) are a technologically evolving industry that can help reduce fossil-fuel dependency and the associated trade deficit.
EVs can also help the country achieve its net-zero goals and improve the deteriorating urban air quality.

Bengaluru, 16 April 2024: The Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a research-based think tank, in collaboration with the International Council for Circular Economy (ICCE), published a White Paper titled ‘Growing the circular bioeconomy, with a focus on the Global South’ and presented the findings at the World Circular Economy Forum (WCEF) 2024, held at Brussels, Belgium.

As India fully embraces the renewable energy (RE) transition and works to achieve its energy targets, harnessing the potential of artificial
intelligence (AI) can cause a transformative shift in the energy sector and pave the way for a smart energy future.

When the Indian government launched the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) in 2019, it was to cut the concentration of atmospheric Particulate Matter (PM) by 20-30% by 2024, from 2017 levels. This was later revised to 40% by 2026.

India is endowed with a 71 GW offshore wind potential, as per the assessment by the National Institute of Wind Energy (NIWE), but the country is yet to set up its first offshore wind plant. In a timely move, the Government of India has initiated bids for offshore wind development of a 4 GW capacity recently.