India, Jan. 1 -- Why phasing out fossil fuels remains a challenge

At present, half the electricity generating capacity in India is non-fossil-fuel based - a significant achievement by all counts. But how smooth will the path be to completely phasing out dirty fuels? That remains a difficult question to answer.

At COP30, India managed two things. First, the mention of a phase-out plan for fossil fuels was avoided and second, some sort of a commitment was extracted from the developed world to triple adaptation funds. For the former, India was supported by China and Russia and, of course, the petro-rich States. The US, whose "persuasive power" would have ensured no text on tripling of adaptation funding entered the final document had it be...