Hot button issue

The scale of climate challenge is increasing

News that the year 2024 was India's hottest since records began in 1901 comes as no surprise, but policymakers urgently need to take notice. A granular look at the numbers shows that five years in the past 15 have been recorded as the hottest since the start of the 20th century. To be sure, India was not an outlier. The World Meteorological Organization has said that 2024 was globally the warmest on record, exceeding the Paris Agreement threshold of 1.5 degrees centigrade of warming above pre-industrial levels (1850-1900). Much, of course, has been said on the Western industrial economies' contribution to the stock of carbon in the atmosphere, which is causing global warming and these countries' perfidious abdication of responsibilities in aiding the developing world to create viable adaptation strategies. But at the heart of India's problem is the growing reliance on coal as a source of energy to power the growing needs of households and industry.