Shivika Mittal

Kudos to NBC New York for saying it without equivocation: "The US is to blame for the world falling behind in the fight against climate change."

This is the first output from a new CICERO project, EMPHASIS: Exploring Mitigation Pathways for Holistic Sustainable Development in Indian States, led by @shivmit.bsky.social @cicero.oslo.no. Follow along for regular updates www.ecpulse.in 6/6

Yes, coal capacity is still growing, but the growth in renewables is just of another scale. The direction of travel is clear. Explosive renewables, slow decline in fossils. 2/

Coal (& gas) still dominate electricity generation (70%), there is a very long way to go. The renewables revolution is under way & is coming fast. That does not necessarily mean coal will go down tomorrow, but its days of growth are limited. It is a declining industry. 3/

At the same time, coal plants were under strain as physical stocks have dropped significantly in 2026, reaching their lowest since 2023 after several years of improvements. During the pre-monsoon season, Coal India dispatched only as much coal as in 2025, despite this year being much warmer.

The types of breaks in monsoon rain we saw in 2026 can lead to more negative health outcomes: humidity remains high but temperature increases, and the combination of high heat and humitidy are dangerous. And of course extra power generation from coal leads to more air pollution.

If you'd like to receive future editions of our Snapshots in your email inbox, there's a link on this page: www.ecpulse.in

But that drier monsoon also led to reduced generation from hydropower stations. With total demand up and hydro down, increased generation from coal-fired power stations filled much of the gap, assisted by strong growth in solar and wind.

Lower monsoon rainfall also means clearer skies, which in turn means higher temperatures. While power demand normally peaks in the pre-monsoon season, 2026 saw high demand peaks throughout May-September, unlike the low demand seen in wet 2025.

📢In the latest edition of our India Snapshot, we look at El Niño and its effects on the Indian monsoon, power generation and demand, and health. There is a reasonably strong link between El Niño years and weaker monsoons, and we saw that this year with less rainfall, particularly in June.

We invite you to read the full Snapshot here, written with @shivmit.bsky.social and Sourangsu Chowdhury of @cicero.oslo.no: www.ecpulse.in/snapshots/oc...

OK, wow.

Gas prices jumped from $3.00 to $4.50 a gallon this year. Americans responded by buying more hybrids, not more EVs. New RFF analysis on why the “obvious” substitution didn’t happen.

Yes, yes, the sun only shines during the day. This has often been viewed as a fatal problem of renewables, but perhaps it is a feature. It cuts down on peak fossil-demand, & avoids the need for over capacity of fossils. Over time, batteries can help spread supply over time. 4/

India has been using non-fossil (including large hydro, nuclear, and bioenergy) as its metric, and the share of installed capacity passed 50% already last year. Meanwhile the share of generation has been growing, but much more slowly because of the low utilisation rate, and is still below 30%.

Check out the full June edition of our India Energy & Climate Pulse co-written with my colleague @shivmit.bsky.social here:

India's solar generation is starting to make a clear dent in coal generation during daylight hours, reaching a peak of 39% on the 3rd of March this year. Coal has little flexibility, so further increases in solar generation would be greatly facilitated by more storage, which is currently minimal.

The nature of solar and wind is that they do not generate evenly across the day. Their 'utilisation' rate can never be as high as coal is now. Coal now is running around 60% utilisation, while renewables are under 20%. So actual renewable power generation is a much lower share of the total.

Renewables have been growing strongly in India, and at the end of May the total installed capacity of variable renewables (excludes large hydro) reached 230.8 GW, surpassing for the first time ever the installed capacity of coal (230.1 GW). This is a significant milestone. With caveats... 🧵

Just because emissions are growing, does not mean developing countries are not making progress! In electricity generation, India has over 50% non-fossil capacity & nearly 30% non-fossil generation. www.ecpulse.in/snapshots/ju... 1/

Read all about it in the India Energy & Climate Pulse by @robbieandrew.bsky.social and @shivmit.bsky.social www.ecpulse.in/snapshots/ju... 5/5

Developing countries in particular are hit hard by constrained gas supply, which pushes up prices and forces prioritisation on who gets to use the gas that is available. Read more how this plays out in India, in the latest India Energy & Climate Pulse. www.ecpulse.in/snapshots/ma...

a few nice updates from Boris on Anthropic's fossil-fuelled chatbot www.linkedin.com/posts/bgamaz...

2025 was a muted year for peak power demand in India, with a wetter year pulling temperatures down. But 2026? ▸April set a new all-year record, and that's already been broken again in May, and we have 9 days left in the month ▸High temperatures and growth in air conditioning are straining the grid

Obviously Donald Trump is not an expert in refrigerants, but you can be, and understand why these decisions can be hugely consequential for climate change, if you read this quick 🧵:

If you're interested in more about energy and climate in #India, check out the latest edition of our monthly "India Energy and Climate Pulse"!

India has built a lot of solar in the last few years, and it's making a real dent in daytime generation. ▸More batteries are needed to store the excess and time-shift it to nighttime, when loads are still high for air conditioning ▸Already storage discharge is half as much as natural gas at night

India’s energy security is being stress-tested at the intersection of geopolitics and climate change. Check this thread 👇

This shows how energy security and food systems are closely interconnected---and why resilience planning is becoming increasingly critical.

India imports about half of the natural gas it consumes, and the government has responded by directing shortages to industry, while maintaining supplies to households ("City Gas").

We're aiming to publish these snapshot reports monthly. Here's a direct link to April's snapshot about why emissions growth slowed so markedly in India in 2025. Check it out! #Energy #EnergySky #ClimateSky #Renewables #Solar #India

🇮🇳 India's grid planning is not keeping up with fast-moving renewables – a mismatch leading to costly delays and curtailment Synchronisation between generation and grid buildout works as the Southern grid's ZERO transmission-related curtailment shows. ember-energy.org/lat...

Measuring poverty used to mean flying data collectors to remote villages every decade. A satellite AI model just mapped every 6-km area of Africa for 36 GPU-hours total, which is roughly the cost of a tank of gas. Cool paper by @marshallburke.bsky.social, et al.: arxiv.org/abs/2604.23166

It's not just about energy, because natural gas is a key feedstock in fertiliser production. At the start of the important Kharif cropping season, natural gas shortages have led to a 25% drop in production of fertiliser as well as massive price spikes for imports.

India has held retail fuel prices fairly constant since the 2022 energy crisis, but with costs mounting quickly through March and April, the government has finally conceded that it cannot absorb these costs forever, and raised prices on the 15th of May.

LPG plays a central role in India's kitchens, but the shift from traditional biomass to imported LPG has left India vulnerable to geopolitical shocks. Domestic production was pushed up, but this was far from sufficient to close the gap left by supply constraints, and consumption has dropped sharply.

📢Today we launch the second of our snapshot reports "India Energy and Climate Pulse" this time with the title "War and Heat: India under pressure" Here's a short thread on what we cover. 🧵

Please read the full report, available here, co-written by my colleague @shivmit.bsky.social as part of our research project Emphasis.

Make America Healthy Again: "Mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants rose by 9 percent in 2025 after years of declines." 🎁🔗

#india We're launching a series of brief monthly snapshots providing an overview of recent developments shaping India’s climate and energy landscape. The first issue is out now! "An Unexpected Slowdown: Why India’s Emissions Growth Stalled in 2025" Check it out :-)

Climate deniers and delayers are going to start saying "sorry but we can't start reducing our emissions, what about the US"

This is one of the key reasons the data centre boom is sucking resources away from power generation construction as well, btw ->

It's crazy how reliant the world's entire energy system is on one body of water, the Strait of Hormuz, just 20 nautical miles across at its narrowest, and situated in one of the most volatile regions on Earth. Here are the countries most dependent on oil&gas through the strait.

WOW! As of this morning only about 350 letters had been sent out urging our Delegates to hold data centers accountable and lower our energy costs. BUT after we blasted this call to action, we hit our goal of sending over 1,000 letters to our Delegates. Keep going! actionnetwork.org/letters/shif...

Ofgem, the UK energy regulator, has disclosed that 140 data centres want grid connections, requiring **50GW** of power capacity at peak Britain’s peak demand on a recently was 45GW Can this amount of energy be provided cleanly? Even if it can, is it worth it? www.thetimes.com/uk/environme...

Big Oil "purchased solar and EV patents to ensure others couldn’t use them, solicited control of renewable markets and then abandoned them, and funded powerful institutions to promote false solutions, all while using trade groups to downplay the harms of fossil fuels, according to the complaint." 😠

this is a top @stuti.bsky.social piece and I also find the headline so interesting - 'proof the green transition isn't dead'. I cannot imagine how anyone could even really formulate the idea that it *is* dead? I guess because they hear about it less; therefore assume it just died??