India’s Clean Energy Transition: Affordability Over Sustainability

The emission of greenhouse gases is spiraling because of the growing need for energy. The continued usage of fossil fuels without adopting proper policies to reduce pollution and mitigate its impacts has serious environmental implications and drives global warming. It is widely been acknowledged that the world’s climate future counts on the transition ability of third-world countries in shifting from finite energy sources to clean energy systems. The sudden surge in spending on clean energy is the flat response to the increased environmental consciousness and ever-rising demand for energy. Though world powers are investing more in clean energy, while the emissions are higher, the investments are flattering in developing countries like India. As the population of developing economies continues to grow, the demand for fossil fuels and the emission of greenhouse gases will also increase. If a country could switch to clean energy by not refitting to polluting energy, it could possibly alleviate the caused environmental damages as it is one of the net-effective and no-emission technologies. The clean energy transition is an add-on to the sustained efforts put forth by India towards reducing greenhouse gases, which encompasses countless developmental policies and schemes relating to cleantech. Yet, there are practical predicaments, which cannot be overlooked. This paper addresses the grey area that lies between the laws and their implementation by scrutinizing efforts taken by the Indian government on clean energy transition, its advancement, and shortcomings. With the help of existing credible secondary sources, this paper aims to study the legal aspects of clean energy in the international arena and ascertain the position of India, in terms of clean energy investment in pursuance of WTO rules, as the third world countries could be forced to disregard their domestic market during the course of this transition.