India’s Now or Never Climate Opportunity
Mass migration to India’s cities will triple the size of its built environment by 2030, driving up energy use and carbon emissions. An expert on India’s energy sector looks at the country’s efforts to balance development and climate impact.
Few countries face the challenge of balancing economic development and climate change as acutely as India, and in no other country is this balance likely to directly impact the lives of so many people.
Over the next decade, some 200 million rural Indians will move to urban centers. Many will join the middle class, creating new demand for goods and energy while tripling the size of India’s built environment. At the same time, rising temperatures and the desertification of India’s agricultural regions will challenge the country’s ability to feed itself.
Energy Policy Now guest Radhika Khosla, visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy, looks at India’s growing demand for energy, and at how the development decisions the country makes today will to a large extent lock in place its energy needs and climate impact for decades to come.
Radhika Khosla
Research Director, Oxford India CentreRadhika Khosla is the research director at the Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development. In 2017-2018 she was a visiting scholar at the Kleinman Center.
Andy Stone
Energy Policy Now Host and ProducerAndy Stone is producer and host of Energy Policy Now, the Kleinman Center’s podcast series. He previously worked in business planning with PJM Interconnection and was a senior energy reporter at Forbes Magazine.
