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Environment

Clearing the air: Do India’s crop burning bans really work?

In December 2015, the National Green Tribunal instituted a ban on crop residue burning across five states. Utilising satellite data on crop fires and administrative data on fines levied, this article ...

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Yamuna River pollution: Problem of governance, not infrastructure

Despite decades of efforts to clean Delhi’s Yamuna, the river remains severely polluted. In this post, Naina Sharma contends that the situation is reflective of gaps in governance, rather than techn...

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Third Ashok Kotwal Memorial Lecture: Voluntary Carbon Markets: Challenges and Opportunities in Developing Economies

The Ashok Kotwal Memorial Lecture was instituted in 2022, in memory of our founding Editor-in-Chief, as an annual lecture on key issues in development. For the third edition on 11 December 2024, Profe...

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Economics and the environment

Published in February 2021 by the UK government, the ‘Dasgupta Review’ calls for changes in how we think, act and measure economic success to protect and enhance our prosperity and the natural wor...

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Economics and the environment

Published in February 2021 by the UK government, the ‘Dasgupta Review’ calls for changes in how we think, act and measure economic success to protect and enhance our prosperity and the natural wo...

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On the economic geography of climate change

Climate change is a defining challenge of our times. In this post, Peri and Robert-Nicoud introduce a special issue of the ‘Journal of Economic Geography’ on climate change, which provides foundat...

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Balancing economic development and climate goals

Although India is on track to meet its target under the Paris Climate Agreement, the fast pace of urbanisation could worsen the problem of climate change. In this post, Ejaz Ghani outlines the policy ...

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Inducing water conservation in affluent urban households

Reducing the demand for water – particularly in affluent, urban households – can lower the burden of increasing supply to ensure universal access, and sustaining it at an affordable price. Based o...

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Sustainable livelihoods and resilience through community forest management

The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Rights) Act, 2006 adopts a rights-based approach to forest conservation and seeks to place local communities at the centre of...

  • Notes from the Field

The importance of a climate stimulus in India

The Covid-19 pandemic has plunged India into recession, and substantial stimulus from the government is required to jump-start the economy. In this post, Ingmar Schumacher contends that while systemic...

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Environmental relocation and firm outcomes

Industrial relocation policies have become increasingly popular as a policy tool to combat pollution in the developing world. Using Economic Census data from 2005 and 2013, this article examines the i...

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India’s progress in meeting its climate goals

India’s target under the Paris Agreement on climate change, is to reduce greenhouse gas emission intensity by 33-35% by 2030, from the 2005 level. In a previous I4I post, Manisha Jain showed that th...

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Reducing the flow of plastic to oceans in India

Growing consumer demands are causing the generation of colossal amounts of plastic waste, and the poor state of waste management implies that large proportions of this litter is making its way into th...

  • Notes from the Field

Tracking India’s greenhouse gas emission intensity target

One of the targets in India’s ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, is to reduce the greenhouse gas emission intensity of GDP by ...

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Implementing Forest Rights Act: Story of two villages in Maharashtra

The Forest Rights Act, 2006 was a landmark forest legislation in India, which recognised individual and community rights over forest resources. However, as of November 2018, only 44.83% of titles have...

  • Notes from the Field

Recent Contributors

Digvijay S.

Digvijay S. Negi

Ashoka University

Vaibhav

Vaibhav Chowdhary

Ashoka Center for People Centric Energy Transition

Anandjit

Anandjit Goswami

Ashoka Centre for a People-centric Energy Transiti

Manisha

Manisha Shah

University of California, Los Angeles

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Paul Stainier

University of Pennsylvania

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Alan Barreca

UC Los Angeles

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Allan Hsiao

Stanford University

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Most Popular Environment Posts

Happy Seeder: A solution to agricultural fires in north India

It is believed that much of the pollution in Delhi in November every year originates in the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana where farmers burn their fields to dispose of crop residue. This ...

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Carbon dioxide emissions from India’s industries: Data sources and discrepancies

Industries are one of the most significant contributors to energy-related carbon-dioxide (energy-CO2) emissions in India – the share of industries in the total emissions was 25%, second only to powe...

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Has environmental regulation been successful in India?

India has an impressive number of environmental regulations – but have they been a success? This column presents evidence that while initiatives such as catalytic converters for cars have reduced ai...

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