Blogs
The blogs are part of WRI India’s mission to provide unbiased, expert analysis on the most important environmental issues facing the world today.
In today’s rapid-fire, fragmented information culture, we hope these insights will provide a measure of clarity to decision-makers worldwide.
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by - Photo Story: Tracking Tomatoes from Plough to Plate
Dinesh, a 31-year-old farmer from the Malwa region in Madhya Pradesh grows a variety of crops on his farm. His educational background in agriculture helps him understand the benefits of crop diversification for maintaining the soil health of his farmland while minimizing risks from crop losses. However, growing tomatoes is often a gamble even for well-informed, progressive farmers like Dinesh due to high input costs, sensitivity to climatic variations such as frost, rainfall, temperature, the perishable nature of the crop, and uncertain market returns.
These factors increase the...
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by and - How India Can Grow Its Economy Through Stronger Climate Action
This blog was first published on WRI.org on February 23, 2022.
India is an emerging economy at the cusp of sizeable growth: over the next three decades, its gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to triple and the population is expected to increase by another 200 million people...
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by and - Groundwater Regulation: A Challenge to make the ‘Invisible Visible’ in India
As per the 2021 CAG report, groundwater extraction in India increased from 58% to 63%, between 2004-17, exceeding the groundwater recharge rate. Climate change effects such as intermittent rainfall further alters the recharge potential, posing a huge threat...
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by , and - Conventional Pathways for Hydrogen Production
To meet climate goals, a global transition towards low carbon pathways strongly propagates the idea to shift to green hydrogen.
But the dominance of fossil-based grey hydrogen remains a reality to be acknowledged and addressed. Despite efforts to transition from fossil-based hydrogen, it is expected that grey hydrogen will play a critical role in meeting rising cross-sectoral demand until the green hydrogen value chain matures to commercialisation.
Steam Methane Reforming (SMR) and Coal Gasification are currently the two key processes contributing to most of the hydrogen...
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by , and - Here’s why India needs a Comprehensive 2030 Electric Bus Rollout Plan
Electrification of public bus transport ranks high on India’s sustainable urban mobility agenda. Pivoting away from Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) driven buses to a pure electric format will have several benefits, including accelerating the pathway to meet the country’s 2070 net-zero target.
To unlock these benefits, e-bus rollout at scale is paramount. Thanks to the financial support available under the Government of India’s subsidy scheme, Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid and) Electric vehicles (FAME), public transit agencies, primarily State Road Transport...
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by , and - Accelerating Electrification of Small Commercial Freights in India
Tata Motors recently unveiled a comprehensive range of 21 new commercial vehicle models across different segments with an emphasis on its ‘Power of 6’ program. In line with this strategy of low-emission and high productivity, they are working on developing multiple small electric...
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by , and - How can Energy Access Explorer support Jharkhand’s development objectives?
The need for a spatial planning tool
Most energy planning exercises focus on the supply side. WRI’s Energy Access Explorer (EAE) provides additional demand side data to inform supply side decision-making. Planning for energy access must be demand-driven and informed by nuanced settlement characteristics such as resource availability, socio-economic indicators, and so on. And this is where EAE becomes relevant.
EAE is an online, open-source, interactive, geospatial platform that will provide...
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by , and - Abating Transport Emissions with Electric Vehicle Adoption in India
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world to a standstill, but if there was any silver lining to this catastrophe, it was the slowdown in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions experienced during the second quarter of 2020. Across the globe, as clear blue skies ruled the COVID-19 lockdowns many countries glimpsed the potential benefits electric vehicles (EVs) can provide with zero tailpipe emissions.
India, being home to 21 out of the 30...
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by , and - Biomass Gasification: A Circular Economy Enabler for Hydrogen Production
This is the third in a series of blogs on hydrogen, which will involve discussions around range of biomass gasification technologies currently available, and low-carbon hydrogen production capabilities and opportunities from the same. Read the first here, and the second here.
Given India’s vast organic waste and resource generation potential and the expected exponential increase in the quantum of waste,...
