India’s energy sector will face two key challenges in the future. Firstly, there is the rising energy demand from a developing economy, whose priority remains bringing people out of poverty. For a country heavily dependent on fossil-fuel imports, there are high costs to meeting this demand. Secondly, India has set an ambitious target of becoming a net-zero economy by 2070. These are strong climate commitments and require the entire energy sector to reduce its overall emissions and mitigate the effects of the global climate crisis.

Extreme and unpredictable changes in the climate are a cause of serious concern globally. In India, the impacts of climate change are already profound. The second part of the Sixth Assessment Report (Working Group II contribution) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), released in early 2022, has referred to India as one of the countries to be most “economically harmed” by climate change. The situation mandates urgent nationwide measures to build climate resilience by mitigating climate-related adversities and enabling adaptation.

Electrolysers used in the production of hydrogen from water are electrochemical energy-conversion devices. These find application in most areas requiring decarbonisation, with higher potential in sectors such as transport and power, which are currently carbon-intensive.

What we are seeing in Bengaluru today is a mixture of events happening at two different levels.

India’s aviation market is the third largest worldwide, after the United States of America (USA) and China. Various government policies and initiatives, including the Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) Policy, which aimed at enhancing rural connectivity, have aided in the growth of the sector.

Land degradation, extending over 96 million hectares is a primary ecological issue for India that has resulted in catastrophic biodiversity loss and exacerbated extreme weather occurrences. One of the major sources of land degradation is large-scale coal mining to realize country's expanding energy demands. By 2050 climate change and land degradation, will result in $1730 billion loss for India.

Over the last 2 years, the sale of electric vehicles has picked up pace in India, with this year’s sale already surpassing that of last year’s by over 80%. As we observe the World EV day to create awareness about EVs and green mobility, several automobile companies have unveiled their plans of launching more EVs in the Indian auto market. EVs are gaining traction globally as an efficient means to decarbonise transportation and reduce fuel dependency.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought on unprecedented adversities for rural populations worldwide, endangering livelihoods and causing psycho-social impacts. These catastrophic effects have been further exacerbated by climate change, with a disproportional impact witnessed among the most vulnerable populations.

The Ministry of Power (MoP) recently came out with renewable purchase obligation (RPO) targets for up to 2030. These targets mandate a specific percentage of the total electricity consumed in all states to be from renewable energy (RE) sources. The move is aligned with India’s COP26 commitments of increasing its RE share in the electricity mix to 50% by 2030. India is battling against climate change and trying to phase down coal and the current RE targets and policies are highly ambitious and challenging.