The years 1992 and 2015 are historic for the environment movement, wherein each of the years witnessed important treaties and conferences, redefining plethora of academic and policy initiatives of past, present and future. Be it the Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Climate Treaty, Agenda 21 or Rio Declaration on Environment and Development among others. These signal to a major shift in international commitments to both sustainability and development. Conversely, pinning down the technical, normative or political definitions of sustainability is a difficult prospect. Over the years, especially due to rising incidence of natural catastrophe, it has come to resonate more with […]
Category: Renewables
Earth Overshoot Day and Our Environment Real-Time
As per the Global Footprint Network (GFN) the world has already consumed this year’s annual budget of natural resources. Having reached its maximum limit on 1st August itself, the earth overshoot day serves as an annual report card, reminding us of our promises to reduce carbon footprint, control climate change and conserve our environment. Notably, humans already overshot nature’s annual budget in early 1970s itself and ever since this has been creeping up. Another significant fact is that every day, every minute past the overshoot day is equivalent of drawing down from the natural resource savings than living of interest. To understand […]
Energy & Climate Policy Trends
We are witnessing a dynamic change in the energy sector and the geopolitics around it. With fast stride towards the decarbonizing the economies, to developments such as lowered cost of solar power, electric vehicle era and secured fossil fuel supply— all together are changing demand-supply and production-consumption patterns of energy. Even then, approximately 1.2 billion people lack access to electricity and to clean cooking fuel. While at one end we are preparing for a world of autonomous vehicles, on the other end we are still battling the energy poverty with people lacking basic amenities. Notably, the Agenda 2030 focuses on […]
Energy Policy Making for Optimal Resource Management
The global oil demand is expected to remain healthy for the next few years, especially in the developing countries of Asia and Africa. Though currently suffering from a slowdown due to the US-China trade war and the rise in renewable technological innovation, one cannot simply write-off oil or for that matter any other conventional fuel like coal or gas, as it forms an integral part of the new energy mix of many nations (both developing and the developed) even today, which deploy tools of policy making for the purpose. However, the new energy mix, of the present age, brings the […]
Building an Inclusive Bio-Economy
The global community, in light of increased geopolitical tensions, economic crisis, magnified disparities, global warming and other socio-economic incidents, has realized that the current fossil fuel based-economic model is not a viable one. Agenda 2030 and its Sustainable Development Goals, then, can be viewed as the global response to this problem. There is now a general consensus regarding the introduction of biomass fuels and renewables as part of the economic model, which will enable nations to progress on the path to an inclusive sustainable development- in other words introduce a bio-economy. What is Bio-Economy? Conspicuously, world’s basic commodities are derivatives […]
India & Green Economy
The last few years have been tough for India, not just in context of economic reforms but also environment— specifically in terms of climate. As per the India Meteorological Department, 2017 was the fourth warmest year of the country, with the last quarter of 2017 being the hottest since 1901. In the beginning of the 20th century, India, a British colony then, suffered from significant climate change marked by severe droughts and famines, which were further fueled by fatal British economic policies. Notably, India’s economic backwardness wasn’t due to any niggardliness of geography, but was rather anthropogenic. There was no […]
Renewables and the Power Dynamics
The past few years in the world history have been marred with geopolitical volatility. A prominent risk to the geopolitical landscape is energy crisis (including the renewables landscape). It is a proven fact that every international regime, old or modern, is based on an energy resource. While coal and steam backed the British Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, petroleum and natural gas served as the backdrop for American hegemony from the late 19th to early 21st centuries. With sustainable development and climate change having gained momentum in the last few years, the present times will certainly be looked […]
Energy: A Basic Human Right
Energy is the key element which connects society, politics, and economies to the environment. Without natural resources the mankind would cease to exist. In present times, it is an inalienable part required to run our day—to—day lives seamlessly, particularly in form of electricity. It serves as a catalyst for the growth story of developing societies and economies. This, accompanied by rise in advanced technologies and innovative practices, further adds value to the otherwise constantly evolving standard of living. It ensures upliftment of the society from the clutches of poverty, hunger, water crisis, diseases etc.; along with economic progress and an […]
Oil Market in Climate Change Discourse
The Oil-Price Shocks of 1970s and 80s catalyzed the modern energy policy world over. This time yet again, with environmental concerns gaining prominence and change in geopolitical landscape, global energy space is experiencing a watershed moment. Earlier, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change set a comprehensive, long-tenure objective to control greenhouse-gas emissions and the anthropogenic climate change; and with old players giving strong competition post their comeback in the market- the sector has been subject to tough, if not tumultuous, fluctuations. Additionally, for long, environmentalists had hoped a reversal in natural resource extraction activities, by switching to renewables- but […]
Climate Security in Times of Energy Insecurity
There is a surge in energy demand world-over, which is increasingly still being met by conventional fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. (Coal is the king in Asia-Pacific, at least till 2040). In last few decades, this has led to serious implications in form of increase in carbon dioxide, methane and carbon monoxide in the atmosphere, resulting in rise of temperature. With rise in global warming, the countries are now fast looking out for ways to reduce their carbon footprint, and most of them targeting their energy basket. The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has in its […]