Blogs

Protecting and improving India’s forests and extending tree cover outside forests in an important approach to achieving India’s Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) and Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Official estimates suggest that in order for this to happen, it is imperative not only to protect and improve existing forest cover, but to also extend tree cover in close to 30 million hectares. In this podcast, Rohini Chaturvedi, Former Director of WRI's Sustainable Landscapes and Restoration work in India, speaks to...

Technology and innovation in urban mobility is moving forward rapidly. However, city streets are a finite and scarce resource. In the lead up to NITI Aayog’s MOVE: Global Mobility Summit, Robin Chase, co-founder and former CEO of ZipCar, speaks about how technology-driven innovation in urban mobility has come a long way from when she first set up ZipCar almost two decades ago, and what cities need to do today to incentivise its people to commute more sustainably.

Robin also highlights...

As India prepared to commemorate its 72nd Independence Day, the southern state of Kerala saw little reason to celebrate. The monsoon rainfall this year was heavier than normal and had reached alarming levels. On an average, districts received 30 percent excess rainfall, with some districts recording between 70 to 90 percent excess.

In agricultural India, an abundant monsoon is a blessing. However, successive spells of heavy and excess rainfall...

Industrial agglomerations together could support at least 33% of the nation’s 40 GW rooftop solar target. Here’s how.

In 2000, the Indian government introduced industrial parks called Special Economic Zones (SEZs), with the objective of enhancing foreign investment, providing an internationally competitive export-processing environment, and boosting employment generating opportunities. As per the mandate set by the Central Ministry of Commerce and...

The Indian energy sector’s dependence on increasingly scarce water resources has serious consequences. In a recent report, Parched Power: Water Demands, Risks, and Opportunities for India’s Power Sector, Tianyi Luo, Deepak Krishnan, and Shreyan Sen highlight this issue and offer recommendations, helping decision-makers understand the magnitude of water issues for the thermal power sector in India using quantitative evidence.

The report states that between 2013 to 2016, 14 of India’s 20 largest thermal power plants...

Recognised as a city offering an abundance of opportunity in India, Bengaluru has witnessed significant increases in business investments and urban migration over the last few decades. Today, it is home to over 10.45 million people, contributes nearly 60 percent to Karnataka’s GDP, and is the fourth largest technology cluster in the world. However, this trajectory of unprecedented rapid urban and...

This blog post originally appeared in TheCityFix.

Imagine a city where roads that are normally clogged with traffic and clouded with smog are instead filled with people – rich and poor, young and old, men and women, all laughing, dancing, watching their children play, cycling Raahgand skating without fear of being run over. Yes, that’s what happened on November 17, 2013, when four and half kilometers of roads around the Galleria Market in Gurugram, India...

Over the last decade, India has established itself as one of the fastest growing economies in the world. With a GDP growth rate of 7.1 percent per annum, the country is adding over 12 million people to the workforce every year. Coupled with this growth and development, the country’s mobility needs have also grown tremendously.

Bus-based public transport in India is operated by 62 government-owned State Transport Undertakings (STUs). While...

Last month, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), Government of India, assured the country’s Supreme Court that all thermal power plants would comply with emission standards by 2022 – five years beyond the original deadline of 2017 – in response to a set of petitions filed by citizen groups. While efforts are being made to increase power generation from...

This blog post originally appeared in TheCityFix.

In 2013, the world’s cities accounted for 64 percent of primary energy use and 70 percent of CO2 emissions. Energy use in buildings is the second largest contributor (after transport) to urban GHG emissions and to urban heat islands. Emissions reductions programs for buildings, then, could bring deep decarbonization to cities and other benefits to boot, like lower energy costs....