21 April, 2025Third 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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Rohini Pande I4I Team 
27 January, 2025
- Videos
Financing the climate transition of India’s power sector
A cornerstone of India’s climate transition plan is to shift towards a high-efficiency, low-emission power sector. In this post, Vardhan and Tilotia outline the investment and financing challenges a...
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Akhilesh Tilotia Harsh Vardhan
- 11 November, 2024
- Perspectives
Can education propel climate action?
While youth in the developing world are anxious about climate change and ready for action, they are constrained by a lack of information and knowledge. In this post, Masood and Sabarwal discuss insigh...
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Surayya Masood Shwetlena Sabarwal
- 21 October, 2024
- Perspectives
Case for electric vehicles through cleaner grid supply
The Indian government recently announced its plan to make India a 100% electric vehicle nation by 2030. In this article, Mudit Chordia, a Consultant at the University of Chicago Urban Labs, discusses ...
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Mudit Chordia
- 18 May, 2016
- Perspectives
Cheaper, cleaner, more reliable: Why invest in cross-border power-trading
Despite improvements to energy supply over the years, many Indian states still face frequent power shortages. Meanwhile, neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Bhutan have large reserves of untapped...
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Deb Chattopadhyay P. N. Fernando Priyantha DC Wijayatunga
- 07 March, 2016
- Perspectives
Ganga pollution cases: Impact on infant mortality
In response to a writ petition against pollution of the river Ganga due to industrial waste, the Supreme Court of India in 1987 mandated the tanneries in Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh to either clean up or sh...
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Shareen Joshi
- 26 February, 2016
- Articles
What is causing Delhi's air pollution?
Several policies aimed at reducing Delhi’s air pollution have been implemented this winter, but what remains unclear is where the pollution comes from. This column takes stock of what we know about ...
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Eric Dodge Rohini Pande
- 15 February, 2016
- Perspectives
Driving Delhi: The impact of driving restrictions on driver behaviour
In an attempt to address Delhi’s grave pollution problem, the state government experimented with a driving restrictions policy for a fortnight in January. Based on a phone survey of a sample of 614...
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Gabriel Kreindler Jasmine Shah
- 08 February, 2016
- Perspectives
The Impact of Climate and Pollution on Worker Productivity: Evidence from a Garment Factory in India
This project aims to answer the following research questions: i) What is the impact of air pollution on worker productivity and other labour outcomes (attendance, tardiness, and attrition)? ii) What i...
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Achyuta Adhvaryu Namrata Kala Anant Nyshadham
- 31 December, 2015
- IGC Research on India
The Paris Agreement: No more chances to fail
The Paris Agreement is being viewed with cautious optimism by most observers. In this article, Milind Kandlikar, Professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability, University o...
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Milind Kandlikar
- 18 December, 2015
- Perspectives
Coal and the climate change debate
In the run-up to the Paris Climate Summit, there has been a growing call among advanced nations to phase out fossil fuels. In this article, Arvind Subramanian, Chief Economic Adviser, Government of I...
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Milind Murugkar E. Somanathan Arvind Subramanian
- 03 December, 2015
- Perspectives
India's energy efficiency
India is the fourth largest energy consumer in the world but is not well endowed with energy resources, making efficiency in energy use very important. This column analyses the spatial dynamics of el...
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Ejaz Ghani Arti Grover Goswami William Kerr
- 10 November, 2015
- Articles
How development affects climate sensitivity of electricity demand in India
The annual average temperature in India in 2009 was about 0.91°C above the average temperature recorded during the 1961-1990 period. This column analyses the impact of daily weather as well as long-t...
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Eshita Gupta
- 20 May, 2015
- Articles
Incentivising states to conserve forests
Central tax revenues will now be shared among states not just on the basis of population, area, and income, but also forest cover. In this article, Jonah Busch, an environmental economist at the Cent...
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Jonah Busch
- 11 May, 2015
- Perspectives
Making the best out of waste
Given rapid urbanisation and the increasing amounts of solid waste generated in India cities, there is a pressing need for effective waste management processes. In this article, Sourabh Bhattacharjee...
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Sourabh Bhattacharjee Ujjwal Kumar Sinha
- 22 April, 2015
- Notes from the Field
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Tweets by Ideas4IndiaMost 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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- 12 November, 2016
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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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