India’s announcement of its revised Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) to the Paris Agreement — the term applied to the mitigation and other climate action targets that countries voluntarily commit to under the agreement — represents a considered step forward when India’s energy and development policies are encountering serious headwinds. It is clear that the government has opted for continuity and incremental advance with respect to India’s earlier NDCs. It is also clearly confident that its commitments will nevertheless be more than adequate in relation to its equitable share of global climate action, in keeping with climate justice and within its expected commitments as a developing nation.

Three climate goals

As the press communique after the Cabinet approval of the updated NDCs noted, there are three specific enhancements that have been committed. The first is an increase in the reduction of emissions intensity of its GDP, from 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 to 47% below 2005 levels by 2035. The second is ensuring that 60% of installed capacity for power generation is from non-fossil fuel sources, while the third is the enhancement of forest and tree cover carbon sinks to 3.5 – 4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent above 2005 levels.

India’s climate policies are best understood in the context of its structural constraints as a lower middle income developing country, that determine its available choices for climate action. Over the last three decades, these constraints have not substantially changed, which is also why India continues to insist on the relevance of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). But apart from these, given the structure of the Paris Agreement that requires renewed and enhanced commitments to climate mitigation every five years, short-term considerations have also begun to have a considerable weight in the formulation of the NDCs. The rapid deterioration of the global environment for climate action over the last year has undoubtedly brought this issue to the fore.

Enthusiasm for climate action

Structural constraints have not, however, dampened enthusiasm for climate action in India, both at the level of the Centre and the State governments. There is a considerable range of activities designed to set India on the path to low-carbon development, drawing significant public and private sector efforts and resources, including electric vehicles, enhancement of energy efficiency, promotion and deployment of non-fossil fuel sources of electricity generation, new technologies such as green hydrogen and more recently, the active promotion of carbon capture and storage efforts.

But given India’s developmental levels today, it is clearly premature for India to convert all such efforts into the significantly more onerous and accountable commitments that are the NDCs, the progress towards which is to be reported every two years in the Biennial Transparency Report (BTR) to the UNFCCC.

A section of global and domestic public opinion has raised the issue of the adequacy of India’s NDCs relative to a global temperature goal of 1.5 degree warming above pre-industrial levels (the more ambitious part of the Paris Agreement’s goals). Some have downplayed the new targets, one commentator going so far as to call it “a walk in the park”. Others call for increased generation from renewables as the metric and not installed capacity. Even some sections of opinion that have welcomed the NDCs, appear nevertheless to be uncertain on whether these new commitments are genuinely the best that India can make at this time.

The cost of going green

All the above variants of the “India can (must) do more argument” ignore some critical realities that contextualise India’s climate actions. Given that India’s natural energy source is overwhelmingly coal, it is inaccurate to view improvements in emissions efficiency of GDP and the corresponding bending of its emissions trajectory as a “natural” corollary of India’s growth story. Priority to electricity from renewable sources comes with significant costs, including backing down readily available and often cheaper or comparably priced coal-based thermal power, further tilting a playing field that privileges renewable energy to sustain our climate commitments.

Renewable energy (RE) projects including utility scale battery storage have begun to make their appearance in India’s power sector. But the corresponding scaling up of India’s battery storage capacity, required for ensuring the stability of generation even from the proposed 2030 RE targets will run into a few trillion rupees at least. Part of such expansion would have to be funded by the government, deploying resources that would have been utilised in other sectors. At the very least, the deployment of such large-scale battery systems is not immediately feasible. The most globally widespread option of energy storage in reverse pumped hydropower systems, has very limited scope in India at present. Additionally, environmental concerns, and water needs for competing uses such as irrigation, as well as the regulatory challenges faced by all large hydro projects are likely to preclude any rapid expansion.

Optimistic RE projections, not only in India but even globally, have run into the lack of transmission capacity and the challenges of grid balancing, with the associated costs often omitted when referring to the cost-effectiveness of RE power.

Since, for India, coal is the mainstay of power generation when solar and wind cease, unlike the large-scale gas and hydro available elsewhere, the full utilisation of the available RE capacity will inevitably have to be “curtailed”, while adding to the operation and maintenance costs for thermal power operated in this cyclical fashion. These add further to the true cost that India bears for the pursuit of its climate commitments.

Improving energy efficiency in other sectors is also being pursued vigorously, including the introduction of mandatory emissions intensity targets in key industries. The early ramp up of electric vehicles, while the jump from BSIV to BSVI vehicle emissions standards was just coming into place, was another leap-frog moment, whose cost to the economy must not be underestimated. Since the 26th Conference of Parties of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change at Glasgow, every Central government budget has seen a range of initiatives and resource commitment across various aspects of climate mitigation. Indeed, a major knowledge gap today is that while future costs of increased mitigation action are routinely calculated, the cost burden attached to India’s mitigation initiatives undertaken so far, in the absence of any significant climate finance, have yet to be estimated in a reliable manner.

Accounting for India’s developmental future

At a more over-arching level, India’s mitigation challenge cannot be based on a simple extrapolation of the current structural features and trends of its economy.

India’s developmental future needs room for further large-scale growth in manufacturing and industry, expansion in the provision of goods and services to its population at adequate levels beyond the minimum, and an urban transition that has only just begun. In this context, the “India can do more” arguments that rely on such extrapolation of economic trends and the persistence of current structural features, miss the urgent need to hedge India’s developmental future.

India cannot commit its NDCs to preserving the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels, when the goal is rapidly slipping out of reach. This a trend that India cannot reverse, given that its per capita emissions are a third of the global average. Even otherwise, under the voluntary emissions reduction NDCs of the Paris Agreement, the benefits of India’s reduction in emissions below any business-as-usual baseline, are distributed primarily to the big emitters globally, due to their inadequate efforts, and proportionately less to India, especially when the largest historical emitter has walked out of all climate treaties and seeks to dismantle climate action both at home and abroad

India’s climate commitments have to be strategic and circumspect, while its NDCs are formulated in informed self-awareness of its, to use the language of the Paris Agreement, “national circumstances.”

(T. Jayaraman is with the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru. Views expressed are personal.)

Published – April 07, 2026 11:01 pm IST

“Fossil fuel dependency is ripping away national security and sovereignty, and replacing it with subservience and rising costs,” UN climate change arm executive secretary Simon Stiell told European Union officials and Ministers in Brussels on March 16, 2026, against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israel-Iran war. He added that the disruption serves as an “abject lesson” on the pitfalls of banking on fossil fuels.

The war in West Asia has disproportionately affected economies such as India, which gets nearly 60% of its crude oil from the region. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced state-run refineries to declare force majeure — an act of god. Pushing a country like India to abandon its remaining coal or domestic gas reserves without a take-off ramp could lead to industrial collapse.

Mr. Stiell’s comments are reminiscent of the expressions of impatience by climate negotiators and stakeholders about how slow countries have been to switch away from fossil fuels: in 2021, activist Greta Thunberg called the COP26 climate talks “blah, blah, blah”.

The West used fossil fuels to build its strategic reserves and today can’t deny India and other countries like it the same opportunities, especially as the latter waits for its renewables infrastructure to mature and expand. At the same time, India’s reliance on fossil fuels from West Asia is obviously why its economy is currently hostage to the region’s geopolitical crisis.

Concentrated supply chains

Mr. Stiell et al. have argued that renewables are immune to such blockades, which is true in part: if the flow of fossil fuels stops today — it is pinched in the Strait of Hormuz — the ‘flow’ of energy also stops, because we burn fossil fuels to release energy. With renewables, the critical minerals are not the source of energy itself. Once the state has set up solar panels and erected wind turbines, their ability to generate energy cannot be embargoed because they will operate as long as the sun shines and the wind blows.

However, critical minerals still represent a significant bottleneck, with additional complications such as the number of industries that need them — from consumer electronics to missile targeting, with the renewable energy sector somewhere in between.

The supply chains for many minerals are even more concentrated than oil. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC+) controls around 40% of global oil production. However, while the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Australia plus Chile extract most of the cobalt and lithium, respectively, a single country — China — currently processes almost 60% of the world’s lithium, 70% of its cobalt, and 90% of rare-earth elements.

With renewable energy also making intensive use of hardware, a blockade of the required components, whether it be turbine blades or magnets based on rare earth minerals, would be just as effective as one of oil. At that point, it is once again a question of whether war could break out between the world’s primary mineral-processing hubs.

The “abject lesson” is only so abject because of the prevailing oil situation. If, say, the West Asia conflict had not begun and Brent crude was $65 a barrel, the trade-off for renewables could return to seeming like a moral luxury — in turn retrenching the value of ‘shock’ events like wars to push the world away from fossil fuels. And to that extent, perhaps Mr. Stiell et al. are smart to seize the chance.

Without a war driving prices up, the high upfront capital expenditure for renewables is less attractive to governments. If oil is cheap, the payback period for a large offshore wind farm might be 15 years; if gas prices jump 50%, this period could shrink to 4-5 years. In other words, sans a war, governments would have continued to place fiscal responsibility before energy sovereignty.

In the same scenario, the world’s dependencies on the critical mineral supply chain presents itself as a scarier prospect. If West Asia is stable and oil is flowing, the U.S. and its allies would likely view the option of trading West Asian oil for Chinese minerals as a net loss in strategic autonomy, which could encourage countries to reshore mineral mining and processing capabilities even before the energy transition picks up pace.

For India, a more stable supply of oil together with its arguably excessive focus on easing business could render its off-ramp into a long and gentle slope with room to continue using its domestic coal and cheap imported gas to power industrial growth while waiting for renewables to mature.

In other words, the Strait of Hormuz blockade could be forcing India to accelerate investments in renewables simply because it has no choice.

Ethics, not fear

Mr. Stiell is in effect wielding fear as his primary tool, especially when he says “dependency is ripping away national security”. The effects of fear never last — especially when countries imagine new ways to outmanoeuvre these threats – and neither do those of guilt. What ultimately matters is ethics. The virtue of renewables should be debated, and adopted, in order to save the planet for the 22nd century rather than for saving the economy for another month.

This also matters because when oil is cheap, the environmental damage of mining lithium, or human rights issues in Congolese cobalt mines are scrutinised more heavily by the public — and while this is as it should be, it should not just be because oil is cheap.

mukunth.v@thehindu.co.in

Published – March 26, 2026 07:45 am IST

Sarangi said MNRE is looking for sustained support for flagship schemes such as PM Kusum and PM Surya Ghar, which have driven decentralised renewable adoption, especially in rural India. Under PM Kusum, states like Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh have seen large-scale deployment, with Maharashtra alone issuing tenders for 16 GW. These schemes have also helped states reduce agricultural power subsidy burdens.

ALSO READ: Wind To Play Bigger Role: MNRE Taps CEA, IMD For Better Forecasting, Aims To Unlock 1,160 GW Potential

He highlighted the success of the utility-led aggregation model under PM Surya Ghar, which allows households to adopt rooftop solar without upfront costs. MNRE expects 7-8 GW of distributed renewable energy to come up in rural India through this model.

On manufacturing, Sarangi said Budget support for upstream solar components will be critical. India currently has 150 GW of solar module manufacturing capacity, making it the world’s second-largest producer after China. Solar cell capacity stands at 27 GW and is targeted to reach 60 GW by June 2026. Ingot and wafer capacity, currently at 2.2 GW, is expected to rise to 20 GW by 2027 based on industry commitments.

The ministry is also exploring support for polysilicon and floating solar projects. Continued R&D funding, Sarangi said, will be essential as India builds a low-cost, reliable and globally competitive clean energy ecosystem.

ALSO READ: Govt Building Portal To Track India’s Green Hydrogen From Production To Use

File photo of workers putting switches and connectors on solar panels after they come out of automated framing.
| Photo Credit: AP

Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy Limited’s renewable energy offerings include EPC solutions for Hybrid Energy and Energy Storage. Photo: www.sterlingandwilsonre.com

Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy Ltd. (SWREL) which is into Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) said it has received Letter of Intent (LoI) for a new order worth ₹1,200 crore in Gujarat.

The company received the order for Design, Engineering, Procurement and Construction of Balance of System (BOS) for 500 MW (AC) Solar PV project on EPC basis.

In addition to EPC with single point responsibility, it will also include comprehensive Operation & Maintenance (O&M) for a period of three years.

Amit Jain, Global CEO, Sterling and Wilson Renewable Energy Group said, “India is one of the world’s largest energy markets and must therefore focus on sustainable options to mitigate climate challenges while strengthening energy security, job creation and economic growth.”

“We therefore remain confident about the future growth of India’s renewable energy sector and our increased role towards supporting it,” he added.

Adani Group’s dedication to electrifying over a million households through the power of the sun and the strength of wind is etched in its latest AD campaign ‘Pehle Pankha Phir Bijli’ (first the fan will come, and then electricity will follow). Adani Group Chairman Gautam Adani shared the campaign video on X (formerly Twitter) and said “the winds of change are here”.

“In our actions sit the promises we make. Promises that are not just about infrastructure but of hope, progress and a brighter tomorrow.”

In our actions sit the promises we make. Promises that are not just about infrastructure but of hope, progress and a brighter tomorrow. The winds of change are here.
Hum Karke Dikhate Hain!#HKKDH#PehlePankhaPhirBijlipic.twitter.com/IqM1DZ3US5

— Gautam Adani (@gautam_adani) December 19, 2024

The 1 minute 30 seconds long video clip starts with a little boy asking his father, when the electricity will come and when the fan will start. To which, his father replies, “Tamtu sir, first comes the fan… then the electricity.”

The video features a remote village with no electricity. But with Adani Group’s intervention, windmills are installed, powering the village.

The video ends with the message, “We don’t just generate electricity from the environment, we also light up lives and spread happiness.”

About Adani Green Energy Limited

Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL) is India’s largest and the world’s leading renewable energy solutions partner enabling the clean energy transition. AGEL develops, owns, and operates utility-scale grid-connected solar, wind and hybrid renewable power plants.

AGEL has an operating renewable portfolio of 8.4 GW, the largest in India, spread across 12 states. It offsets over 41 million tonnes of CO2 emissions cumulatively. The company has set a target of 45 GW by 2030.

(Disclaimer: New Delhi Television is a subsidiary of AMG Media Networks Limited, an Adani Group Company.)

New Delhi:

India has ambitious plans to set up nuclear reactors across the country, especially in states where thermal power plants have either completed its life, or where access to coal is a challenge.

With its focus on clean energy, India aims to reduce its dependence fossil fuels, and for this, the central government has now asked states to set up nuclear power plants.

India’s Power Minister, Manohar Lal, on Tuesday chaired the Conference of Power Ministers of States & Union Territories where he asked states that are distant from coal resources to set up nuclear-based power plants. The move has also been made keeping in mind the rapidly-growing demand for electricity in the country.

In the Union Budget, the central government had proposed to partner with private investors to set up small-scale nuclear reactors to meet its growing energy demands.

“States should consider setting up nuclear power plants at the sites where coal-based thermal power plants have completed their life,” the Union Minister told state governments as per a statement issued by the Centre.

The minister also asked states to identify power utilities and list them on the stock exchange to meet its investment targets in the power sector. Asking states to ramp up its renewable energy capacity, the minister emphasised on the need to improve transmission systems in order to achieve that.

Many foreign power plant builders have stayed away from building atomic and nuclear plants in India because of stringent laws over compensation as well as very strict rules and regulations imposed by New Delhi in the event of an accident, mishap or leak.

India currently has 24 nuclear power plants in operation. All of them are run and maintained by the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited or NPCIL, which comes under the Department of Atomic Energy. NPCIL is a government-owned public sector undertaking or PSU, headquartered in Mumbai.

India’s current power generation from nuclear plants is around 8 gigawatt. New Delhi has ambitious plans to increase this to more than 20 gigawatt by 2032.

Being the only G20 nation to achieve its climate goals ahead of its deadline, India aims to add 500 gigawatt of renewable energy to its grid by 2030. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has also pledged to make India a nation with net-zero carbon emission by 2070.
 

The Centre has decided to nudge banks to fund the renewable energy projects in the country.
| Photo Credit: B. JOTHI RAMALINGAM

To help meet India’s ₹30 trillion funding requirements for installing 500 GW of non-fossil fuel capacity by 2030, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is in talks with financial institutions, public and private sector banks, urging them to commit a portion of their loans to renewable energy projects.

At the forthcoming Re-Invest summit, scheduled in Gandhinagar next week, all major banks and financial institutions will be giving “shapath patra” (promissory notes) about their proposed loans or funding plans in the renewable energy sector, Pralhad Joshi, Minister for New and Renewable Energy, said at a press briefing on Wednesday (September 10, 2024). Such “shapath patra” would be given by developers, manufacturers and private equity investors, he added.

“We have not specified any targets but banks are expected to give firm commitments. Only with the participation of banks and industry can India hope to attract finance to facilitate the renewable energy sector,” said Mr. Joshi.

Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is scheduled to inaugurate the conference.

Also read:The challenges of renewable energy 

In a statement to the Rajya Sabha last year, R.K. Singh, former Renewable Energy Minister, said that the Reserve Bank of India had included bank loans up to a limit of ₹30 crore to borrowers for purposes like solar-based power generators, biomass-based power generators, windmills, micro-hydel plants and for renewable energy-based public utilities, under Priority Sector Lending classification. However, actual terms and conditions of the loans, including the requirement of collateral security, vary among different banks/financial institutions based on factors such as exposure of banks/institutions to the sector, creditworthiness of the borrower, and risk perception.

A view shows the Lego logo and some bricks inside their headquarters in Billund, Denmark, April 25, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Toymaker Lego said on Wednesday (August 28, 2024) it was on track to replace the fossil fuels used in making its signature bricks with more expensive renewable and recycled plastic by 2032 after signing deals with producers to secure long-term supply.

Lego, which sells billions of plastic bricks annually, has tested over 600 different materials to develop a new material that would completely replace its oil-based brick by 2030, but with limited success.

Now, Lego is aiming to gradually bring down the oil content in its bricks by paying up to 70% more for certified renewable resin, the raw plastic used to manufacture the bricks, in an attempt to encourage manufacturers to boost production.

“This means a significant increase in the cost of producing a Lego brick,” CEO Niels Christiansen told Reuters.

He said the company is on track to ensure that more than half of the resin it needs in 2026 is certified according to the mass balance method, an auditable way to trace sustainable materials through the supply chain, up from 30% in the first half of 2024.

“With a family-owner committed to sustainability, it’s a privilege that we can pay extra for the raw materials without having to charge customers extra,” Christiansen said.

The move comes amid a surplus of cheap virgin plastic, driven by major oil companies’ investments in petrochemicals. Plastics are projected to drive new oil demand in the next few decades.

Lego’s suppliers are using bio-waste such as cooking oil or food industry waste fat as well as recycled materials to replace virgin fossil fuels in plastic production.

The market for recycled or renewable plastic is still in its infancy, partly because most available feedstock is used for subsidised biodiesel, which is mixed into transportation fuels.

According to Neste, the world’s largest producer of renewable feedstocks, fossil-based plastic is about half or a third of the price of sustainable options.

“We sense more activity and willingness to invest in this now than we did just a year ago,” said Christiansen. He declined to say which suppliers or give details about price or volumes.

Rival toymaker Hasbro has started including plant-based or recycled materials in some toys, but without setting firm targets on plastic use. Mattel plans to use only recycled, recyclable or bio-based plastics in all products by 2030.

Around 90% of all plastic is made from virgin fossil fuels, according to lobby group PlasticsEurope.