A farmworker cleans the solar panels of a solar water pump in the village of Jagadhri, Haryana Country, India. (Photo credit: Prashanth Vishwanathan/ IWMI) Decisions made in India over the next few years will play a key role in global efforts to head off the most catastrophic effects of climate change. The country has one of the world’s fastest-growing economies, and its energy consumption is growing rapidly as a result — but it still relies largely on fossil fuels. India has a general election that will wrap up in June 2024, and both major parties say they support moving the country away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible, a position backed by a sizable majority of citizens. Global institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank have pledged to help finance efforts to cut climate pollution. But many experts say more help is needed if India and other developing countries are to meet their energy goals. As Indian Environment Secretary Rameshwar Prasad Gupta said in an interview with the Economic Times, “Without adequate climate finance being definitively available, we can’t commit” to curbing India’s carbon emissions fast enough to meet the country’s targets under the global Paris climate agreement of 2015. India has only generated about 3% of total historical climate pollution compared to 25% for the United States. But it is the third-highest carbon-polluting country today. To have a chance of meeting the Paris targets, the world cannot afford for India and other developing countries to follow the same path that made rich countries wealthy: burning “cheap” fossil fuels, because we now know the tremendous indirect costs of fossil fuel via environmental and health damages. The size of India’s economy has almost doubled since Narendra Modi became prime minister a decade ago. The country surpassed China last year to become the most-populated... |