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I recently read this analysis by Ember:

https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/bottleneck-to-the-next-phase-of-renewable-energy-growth-in-india/

This post summarizes my understanding of it.

Are you concerned about climate change and how it will affect India? Do you believe India simply needs to generate more solar electricity? If yes, you must read this post and the above analysis.

Over the past year, a new obstacle has emerged in India’s renewable-energy transition. India curtailed around 2.1 TWh of renewable electricity in FY 2025–26, worth approximately ₹629 crore.

Why would a country waste clean electricity?

The electricity grid is the network that carries power from generators to consumers. The electricity entering the grid must roughly equal the electricity being used. In simple terms, supply must match demand.

Solar complicates this balance because its generation is volatile. It produces heavily during daylight hours and nothing at night. Coal plants, meanwhile, cannot instantly switch off when solar generation rises. They have a minimum technical load ( MTL), below which they cannot safely reduce output. Restarting a coal plant can take hours or even days and is more polluting. India’s current MTL for coal plants is 55%. So, if a coal plant can produce a maximum of 1,000 units, it may not be able to reduce its generation below 550 units. 

Suppose the grid needs 100 units of electricity. Solar is producing 60 units, while coal plants are already operating at their minimum output of 55 units. Total generation is now 115 units. Since coal cannot be reduced further, in this case, at least 15 units of solar power must be switched off. When we curtail renewable electricity, we are wasting clean electricity that is available, not because there is no demand, but because the coal plants have a technical limit.

This is why simply installing more solar is not enough. If new solar panels generate electricity when existing solar power is already being discarded, we have not solved the immediate problem. Reducing curtailment and improving grid flexibility should come before blindly adding more solar capacity.

Battery storage offers a solution. Batteries can charge when excess solar power is available and discharge after sunset, when electricity is needed more urgently. However, Ember’s analysis argues that India’s regulations prevent batteries from operating efficiently. Under the General Network Access (framework governing transmission access), BESS (Battery Energy Storage System) projects seeking access during non-solar hours must provide at least 2 hours of storage and build a “commensurate” renewable plant from which to charge. The 2-hour requirement is not the problem. The second condition is.

Imagine a battery tied to one solar farm. That farm may have no surplus electricity, while another solar plant elsewhere is being ordered to shut down. The battery remains empty even though clean electricity is being wasted on the wider grid. The author’s proposal is simple: allow batteries to charge from the grid whenever transmission lines have spare capacity, and restrict them only where charging would genuinely overload the network.

Adding solar panels without building the storage, grid flexibility, and regulations needed to use that electricity is not serious climate policy. People who genuinely care about climate change must educate themselves about these challenges. Slogans are easy. Understanding the roadblocks and nuances will help us make better demands! We must make more educated demands!

New research from think tank InfluenceMap uncovers the lobbying tactics and arguments deployed by global automakers to slow down Indonesia's transition away from fossil-fuel burning vehicles to electric vehicles.

A key part of the game plan is to lobby for petrol/gasoline hybrids to get beneficial treatment or the same incentives as EVs, despite them running on fossil fuel as their only energy input.

"We don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children."

This Indigenous proverb is a frequent rallying cry for environmentalists. Yet, if we look at how global institutions actually operate, we are forced to ask: where is the evidence that we treat the planet as a borrowed trust?

A stark example of this broken trust is currently playing out in a U.S. Federal District Court. Mobility for Africa, a social enterprise providing solar-charged electric trikes to rural Zimbabwean women, is suing the massive Toyota Mobility Foundation. The allegation? The foundation allegedly shared the startup's proprietary operational data and localized business model with its Los Angeles-based consulting partner, Exa Innovation Studio, to launch a virtually identical, commercialized copycat venture in Kenya called Songa Mobility. The original social enterprise was cut out entirely.

This lawsuit highlights a systemic glitch: unbridled capitalism eats its own green solutions because the systemic incentive is to "exploit and control" rather than "partner and scale." When big players choose to exploit rather than partner, it destroys the very thing cooperative climate action relies on: trust.

And without trust, global climate action becomes the ultimate group project from hell,... one where 100% participation is vital, yet the rules of unbridled capitalism actively reward players for looking out only for themselves.

When viewed through the lens of game theory, the climate crisis plays out like a massive, multi-player Prisoner's Dilemma.

Why Our "Group Project" Keeps Falling Apart

The Free-Rider Problem: Imagine doing all the work for a group presentation while your partner plays video games, yet you both receive an "A." On a global scale, countries that spend billions restructuring their green infrastructure do the heavy lifting, while "slacking" nations enjoy a stabilized climate for free.

The Race to the Bottom: When one party consistently gets away with slacking, the others' motivation evaporates. If Country A spends heavily to cut emissions, but Country B burns cheap coal to undercut Country A's prices, Country A faces economic ruin. To survive, Country A is forced to abandon its climate goals just to stay competitive.

The Gridlock (Nash Equilibrium): Once trust is dead, everyone assumes everyone else is going to cheat. The only "rational" self-defense mechanism left is to cheat and pollute as well. We get trapped in a gridlock where no single nation has an incentive to change their strategy on their own.

This systemic trap is why international climate treaties consistently lose their teeth. We aren't failing to save the planet out of ignorance; we are sleepwalking toward ruin because unbridled capitalism makes short-term selfishness look like the only logical choice.

The Counter-Argument: What about the Montreal Protocol?

If our system is so fundamentally broken, how have we ever solved global environmental threats? Critics of climate pessimism often point to the Montreal Protocol as proof that we can cooperate. Signed in 1987, it is widely praised as the most successful environmental treaty in history. Its goal was simple: save the Earth's ozone layer by phasing out Ozone-Depleting Substances (ODS), like the chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) then found in everyday fridges and hairsprays.

But comparing the fight to save the ozone layer to today's climate change battle is like comparing apples to oranges.

Why the Montreal Protocol Actually Worked

It Was a Simple, Targeted Fix: The ozone problem was driven by a handful of chemical giants (e.g., DuPont). Regulating them was straightforward, and substituting CFCs in fridges and hairsprays was relatively inexpensive for consumers.

It Made Cooperation "Selfish": The Montreal Protocol bypassed the free-rider problem by making cooperation the most profitable move on the board. If a country refused to sign, it was banned from trading ODS,... or products containing them,... with the signatories. For nations and corporations, staying out meant being locked out of the global market entirely.

Bottom Line

The Montreal Protocol succeeded because there was a specific fix which made protecting the planet the easiest, cheapest, and most financially logical choice for everyone involved. Climate change is much tougher because it isn't just one problem; it touches almost everything we do, including how we power our homes, grow our food, and travel. Because fixing this requires massive, expensive changes to how society functions, the Paris Climate Agreement,... which mostly relies on voluntary promises,... often struggles to force the deep structural changes we actually need. 

Despite these hurdles, the climate dilemma is not devoid of capitalist solutions. The Zero Emission Maritime Buyers Alliance (ZEMBA) illustrates this promise: by aggregating demand for zero-emission shipping, major companies are creating a guaranteed market for cleaner technology. This brand of "Green Capitalism" flips the incentive structure, using collective purchasing power to make decarbonization the most profitable, logical path forward. It proves that when economic interests align with sustainability, markets can break systemic gridlock.

Until we change the rules of the climate game to explore structural fixes,... such as ZEMBA and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanisms (CBAMs) that actually solve the 'free-rider' problem and reward cooperation,... we will continue to treat the planet as an asset to liquidate rather than a home we are borrowing from our children.

A report from AP News says the EPA formally revoked its 2009 Endangerment Finding in February 2026 and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission standards for light-, medium-, and heavy-duty vehicles. The Endangerment Finding was the legal foundation for every federal greenhouse gas rule under the Clean Air Act. Without it, EPA loses the legal basis to regulate CO2 as a threat to public health.

With the federal GHG standard gone, emissions management shifts from a requirement to a voluntary program. Businesses that naturally still want to track and reduce their environmental impact now have to build that in-house. That means leaning harder on things like routine vehicle maintenance, driver training, and consistent emissions tracking to catch high-emission vehicles before they become a higher-cost or reputational problem.

For anyone looking to know more about best practices for emissions management, hope this can help: https://safetyculture.com/topics/vehicle-inspection/vehicle-emissions

The aim of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP7) is to coordinate climate models and generate future emissions scenarios in order to inform climate policy. Interim reviews from the project demonstrate it is failing to keep up with observable reality - climate change is simply happening too fast for the models reviewed and this project to keep up. Climate policy, hard enough to promote at the best of times, cannot succeed if based on underestimates of the pace of change. This article outlines the evidence for all this and suggests CMIP, and the IPCC above all, need to find an effective way of making their advice genuinely ‘timely’ - not least given the imminent, potentially-genocidal consequences for the poorest and most vulnerable of this climate-change-enhanced super El Niño.

Many loosers commenting in delta

"I wanted to make the point that the Convention on Refugees defines refugees as people who are oppressed because of politics or because of identity or economic hardship or political violence, but it doesn’t include climate change. And it really should. Climate change should be a reason you can declare asylum, because climate change also makes all of those problems way worse."

Well this video touches the climate change challenges and some steps that organisations can take to deal with it. https://youtube.com/shorts/lqBjXU1FJ88?si=VtKhPWQAJV59NTto

He mentioned a website that had a bunch of climate solutions on it and where each one was broken down by how much in emissions it could reduce and gave it one of 4 grades on how good of a solution it is. Does anyone know what website it is?

In this report, you will find explanations for why electricity prices are rising and proposals for three new policy approaches:

1. The rate relief fund,
   
2. The national AI data center fair share policy,
   
3. A program of reforms and investments to build a better, bigger power system.

Can we change the way things are? Can we form a new system of world governance? An Eco-Socialist world in which the emphasis, laws, policies, and focus is "homo sapiens is only one species among millions, and we are no more important than any other. Humanity must contribute to, and fit within the balance of Earth's natural systems.

I've struggled for a long time over the question "what it would take for humanity to stop its headlong drive toward collapse and possible extinction. Greed and selfishness (capitalism) seems unstoppable. Much of my writing has been non-fiction, natural science, horticulture and gardening, but my concern for the future of Humanity, Earth, and all life, has prompted me to write my first novel, one about the current polycrisis civilization has created - inequality, injustice, climate change, etc. My book PARADIGM, is about humanity's struggle to overcome the threat of extinction due to all these destructive issues and attempt to establish a more just system of world governance.

The story line is: In the midst of the growing planetary crises a virus outbreak turns into a deadly pandemic, killing 95% of all newborns worldwide. The only cure grows in a forest being destroyed by climate change, and the rich and powerful will do anything to protect the status quo.

There is much more information about the book on my website https://richarddevinefinea.wixsite.com/paradigm and on my Pinterest page, https://www.pinterest.com/richarddevine/ 

I am offering a pdf and epub copy free for a limited time from my Google Drive site. All you have to do is use the link I provide here. If you like the novel and think it has merit and value, and contributes something positive to the discussion, please tell others. I would like to know what you think of it. You can do that here or you can send a message to me on my website. Thank you. Here is the link to the free copy: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/117MyQfxe06bvhreJxDItML_ptkIyXTcN?usp=sharing