Reducing atmospheric greenhouse gases, while increasing economic wealth is only achievable with an intelligent mix of all available energy sources.

India energy scenario is fast adapting to the changing climatic regimes with new low carbon technologies, energy efficiency and renewables striding into prominence. Shri H S Brahma, Secretary, Ministry of Power, Government of India, briefly interacts with G’nY team via email to lend us a glimpse of what is envisaged for the years ahead.

While the developed countries want the developing countries to put caps on greenhouse gas emissions (GGE), the emerging economies want the advanced countries to accept deeper cuts in GGE and also provide technology transfer besides financial help for adaptation and mitigation programmes.

Shri S K Chaturvedi, CMD, Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd., in conversation with the editor, affably offers insights on issues of sustainable grid management and outlines mechanisms to increase grid efficiency. Optimistic about the sustainability of India’s energy scenario. Shri Chaturvedi feels that renewable energy will take great strides in the near feature.

For those not yet fixated on the inevitability of the use of modern materials for their much vaunted strength, mud houses can be a liberating way to meet housing needs, private and public, without extravagance but with elegance.

The total forest cover of the country as per the 2007 assessment of State of Forest Report is 78.37 million hectares which constitutes 23.84 per cent of the geographic area of India.

Despite efforts to enhance domestic energy production and diversify fuel mix, India still faces energy and peak shortages of around 8 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, while a large section of the rural population continues to lack access to clean and efficient energy fuels to meet their daily requirements.

Over the last two decades, sustainable management of forests have reversed deforestation and have transformed India’s forests into a significant net sink of carbon dioxide.

Until recently, most emission studies carried out in developed countries have applied techniques that do not necessarily reflect ground realities in developing countries. To develop a fact-based perspective on climate change in India, Ministry of Environment and Forests recently supported a set of independent studies.

Dr Amitabh Kundu, Professor of Economics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.