CarbonCopy launches a new 4-part series on the state of India’s native forests, beginning in Chamba, where swollen rivers carried hundreds of cut logs downstream, a warning that India’s ecological foundations are fraying
CarbonCopy launches a new 4-part series on the state of India’s native forests, beginning in Chamba, where swollen rivers carried hundreds of cut logs downstream, a warning that India’s ecological foundations are fraying
As August sloshed to an end, the people of Chamba badly needed respite — and reassurance. It wasn’t to be. In that last week, rainfall, abnormally high all month, added further intensity. Dumping four times more rain than normal, it would leave Himachal Pradesh with the wettest August in 76 years.
Even as locals hoped these rains were an anomaly and that their little town’s ecological foundations were still secure, the Ravi delivered its own warning. After days and weeks of running in spate, the river washed hundreds of logs down to Chamba.
A video captured this moment. The river, swollen enough to lap at doorsteps, was eddying before a local bridge, spinning back on itself before rushing out from the left as a raging mud-brown torrent. Caught in this maelstrom, moving anti-clockwise along with the river, were hundreds of logs, all cut to the same length.
It wasn’t clear who had cut these. But, for locals standing on the bridge, the larger message was clear. Changing weather wasn’t Chamba’s only fraying ecological foundation. The forests above it were being hollowed out as well.
As it and other videos showing logs being swept down by rivers or pooling at dams did the rounds, India’s Supreme Court felt disturbed enough to take notice.
A bench led by Chief Justice BR Gavai and Justice K Vinod Chandran said these videos suggested rampant and “prima facie illegal” tree-felling in the Himalayas and issued notices to the Ministries of Environment and Jal Shakti, the National Disaster Management Authority, the National Highways Authority of India, and the state governments of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Jammu & Kashmir, asking them to explain the scale of the issue and the steps being taken to prevent further damage.
The Supreme Court needed to cast its net wider. Forests are in trouble across India.
As books like Blood Sanders: The Great Forest Heist and countless media reports on illicit felling show, human pressure on India’s forests continues to be high.
Large projects are decimating forests as well. The Great Nicobar port-city project is expected to clear 130 square kilometres of primary rainforest, felling anywhere between 1 million to 10 million trees. Another 4 million trees might be axed for the Ken-Betwa Link Project. Adani’s Parsa Kente Basan coalblock in Hasdeo Arand will claim 3.68 lakh trees. In Arunachal, Dibang Multipurpose Project will kill 3.2 lakh trees and Etalin hydel project will claim another 2.7 lakh trees. On the whole, just the projects cleared by India’s environment ministry between 2020 and 2022 will cull 2.3 million trees.
India’s response to these losses has been imperfect. As the trafficking of sandalwood and blood sanders has shown, India’s efforts to curb illegal trade in timber have not been a resounding success. Turn to large projects and the scorecard is not much better. India has tried to mitigate those forest losses by getting project proponents to plant an equivalent (or higher) number of trees. In effect, the country is losing native forests but adding plantations.
This, too, is a problem. A collection of trees doesn’t equal a forest. Over millions of years, each forest develops its own unique assemblage of inter-dependent species, which helps it regulate the water cycle, support forest-dwelling communities and, as in the hills, prevent erosion. For this reason, as Birute Galdikas writes in Reflections of Eden, her book on the Orangutans of Borneo, “replanted heavily logged areas and tree plantations (cannot) replace the complex forest ecosystem.” They cannot even sequester as much carbon as a native forest.
And so, a large question needs to be asked. Between human pressure, timber trafficking and large projects, what percentage of India is now under native forests?
A new normal
Given the shifting baseline syndrome, each generation assumes the state of the environment, as inherited, as normal. People living near seas assume whale sightings are sporadic. People living in India assume the country’s forests were much the same as now, running along the Himalayas and the western ghats, the eastern ghats and, extending westwards from the latter into central India.
And yet, that is not how things always were. In the 4th or fifth century, when he wrote Meghadootam, Kalidasa described a country blanketed by forests. Even by the 1700s, much of India was still under forests. By this time, with the country’s population rising to about 165 million, forests were being cut for agricultural expansion and household use. And yet, given low life expectancy and reverential attitudes towards nature, pressure on forests stayed relatively low.
By 1864, as Shekhar Pathak writes in The Chipko Movement: A People’s History, undivided India had thick tree cover — what we would perhaps call forests today — on 40% of its land. That year, however, the British took over India’s forests. Locals’ customary rights were removed. India saw the rise of industrial logging to feed demand from elsewhere. Between 1865 and 1885 alone, as Pathak writes, 65 million railway sleepers were sent from the Yamuna valley alone.
With that, the country’s forests began to shrink. By 1880, as NRSA scientists have estimated, India’s forest cover had come down to 31.7%. By independence, it had shrunk further yet, accounting for no more than 40 million ha of India’s 328.7 million ha apart from the forests controlled by the princely states.
Despite independence, India’s forest bureaucracy continued to follow colonial principles. As Akhileshwar Pathak describes in Contested Domains: The State, Peasants and Forests in Contemporary India, both logging operations and denial of locals’ customary rights continued. By 1975, even after subsuming forests from the princely states, India’s forest cover had shrunk to 19.49%. Only in the 1980s, after mass movements like Chipko and Silent Valley, did India’s forests win a reprieve.
The Forest Conservation Act of 1980 put forest and biodiversity conservation centre-stage. Logging is reduced in importance. As shown in Michael Lewis’s Inventing Global Ecology: Tracing the Biodiversity Ideal in India, 1945-1997, the notion of forests with inviolate cores and buffers where locals could exercise customary rights came in. As did the notion of compensatory afforestation to replace losses from forest diversions. By this time, though, India’s forest cover stood at 18.34%.
What has happened since?
Since the nineties, however, India has seen a paradox take root. The country has seen a jump in both the numbers and aspirations of communities living near forests. In tandem, large projects have made their own inroads into forests.
Legal amendments have facilitated forest diversions. Between 1994 and now, India’s environment ministry has severely diluted India’s environmental clearance process, creating an outcome where projects are almost never rejected on environmental grounds and almost all applications for forest diversion get approved. Between these processes, as the people of Chamba saw in August, India continues to lose forests.
Despite these mounting pressures, however, the Forest Survey of India (FSI) says the country’s forest cover has grown from 18.34% in 1980 to 19.44% in 1991; 20.64% in 2003; 21.05% in 2011; and 21.76% in 2023.
The proximate answer to that conundrum is well-known. Not only does the FSI follow an expansive definition of forests — counting as forest any land patch bigger than a hectare with tree canopy density over 10 percent (regardless of its land use, ownership, or tree species) — it also clubs plantation and forest data while calculating India’s forest cover.
Seen one way, it has little choice. The country has committed to create an additional carbon sink of 2.5-3 billion tonnes through additional forest and tree cover by 2030. “That is possible only if 33% of the country’s geographic area is under forests,” said Uma Shankar Singh, a now-retired IFS officer from Uttar Pradesh.
And yet, as this article said above, plantations do not equal forests.
How are India’s native forests doing?
India’s native forest cover could have grown despite human pressure and industrial projects under two conditions. One. The country had to curb illicit felling of forest trees — whether for local use or by timber traffickers.
Two. It had to offset forest losses from industrial and infrastructure projects through high-quality afforestation, as at Rao Jodha National Park or Nature Conservation Foundation’s forest restoration work at Valparai, both of which give the original forest a chance to revive.
In May, CarbonCopy began taking a closer look at these questions. While much has been written about India’s afforestation drives — and the low survival rates that plague them — the country’s response to illegal logging and timber trafficking is under-explored. And so, the second part of this series picks up Khair, or Acacia Catechu, for a closer look.
The tree, which grows along riverine tracts in the hills, is under heavy demand from India’s pan masala industry. How well is the forest department managing its demand?
Link for the Part 2 of the series: https://carboncopy.info/how-indias-pan-masala-boom-is-stripping-its-forests/
Photo: Pixabay
India launches National Red List Assessment to map extinction risks of 11,000 species
To meet commitments made under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, India launched the National Red List Assessment (NRLA) 2025–2030 vision, HT reported. The NRLA is a framework to assess the extinction risks of about 11,000 species, including 7,000 species of flora and 4,000 species of fauna, across the country.
The Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), along with, IUCN-India and the Centre for Species Survival, prepared the framework for a nationally coordinated and science-based system to assess and monitor the conservation status of India’s species, the report said.
India is among the world’s 17 megadiverse countries, home to four of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots: the Himalayas, the Western Ghats, Indo-Burma, and Sundaland.
According to the government, India occupies only 2.4% of the world’s land area, but harbours nearly 8% of the global flora and 7.5% of global fauna, with 28% of the plants and over 30% of the animals being endemic.
Punjab: India’s ‘breadbasket’, ‘on its knees’ after 2025 flood, third in seven years
Punjab floods submerged 700,000 hectares in water and left mounds of silt and rotting crops. The estimated loss of rice is ₹7,500 crore, and the false smut has spread over 300,000 acres in ‘India’s breadbasket’, which has been “brought to its knees by three floods in the past seven years,” reported DTE. The outlet said in only 10-15 days, 2,520 villages in the state of 30 million people were submerged. Nearly 400,000 people directly connected to agriculture were impacted.
First climate tipping point reached after coral reef diebacks, scientists warn
The world reached its first climate “tipping point” as global warming pushes warm-water coral reefs towards an irreversible decline, warned a new research, the Independent reported. The report, co-authored by more than 160 scientists in 23 countries, “found that warm-water coral reefs…are already passing their thermal tipping point”, the newspaper said: “The scientists put this threshold at 1.2°C warming above pre-industrial levels, but the world has now hit 1.4°C, meaning the impacts of passing the tipping point are under way.” The New Scientist spoke to lead author Prof Tim Lenton, who said: “We’ve taken a sample of the 1.5°C world and we have seen the consequences…A majority of coral reefs are under risk of extensive dieback [or bleaching] and tipping into the alternative seaweed-dominated, algal-covered state.”
The Guardian reported that the world is on the edge of breaching other tipping points, including the dieback of the Amazon and the collapse of major ocean currents and the loss of ice sheets.
Cold Desert named India’s 13th UNESCO biosphere reserve
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on September 27, 2025, designated India’s Cold Desert Biosphere Reserve as part of its global network. India now has 13 UNESCO Biosphere Reserves, DTE reported. The announcement came during the fifth World Congress of Biosphere Reserves in Hangzhou, China, where 26 new sites were added worldwide.
This is India’s first high-altitude cold desert biosphere reserve and one of the coldest and driest ecosystems in UNESCO’s World Network of Biosphere Reserves. Around 7,770 square kilometres “at altitudes between 3,300 and 6,600 metres, the site covers Pin Valley National Park and its surroundings, including Chandratal, Sarchu and Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. It features windswept plateaus, glacial valleys, alpine lakes and rugged high-altitude deserts,” the outlet said, adding that the region homes “snow leopards, Himalayan ibex, blue sheep and golden eagles. Around 12,000 residents sustain livelihoods through herding, farming and traditional medicine.”
Groundwater, ‘not glaciers’ is lifeline of Ganga’s summer flow: Study
A new study showed that “groundwater, not glaciers, is the lifeline of the [Ganga] river,” Mongabay India reported. Quoting the lead author’s Abhayanand Singh Maurya the outlet said, “The study published in Hydrological Processes, is the first comprehensive isotope study to show that groundwater aquifers are the main source of the Ganga river’s summer flow, in the upstream region, glacier and snow melts contribute significantly to the river flow, this is not the case in the regions beyond the Himalayan foothills,”
Maurya told the outlet that the contribution of glacier melts to the river was only about 32% of the total flow. This got him wondering about the source of the remaining water in the plains, where discharge is several times higher than the discharge at Rishikesh.
The outlet explained that the Ganga river, which originates from the Gangotri glacier in the western Himalayas and flows through the Indo-Gangetic Plain of India and Bangladesh, is crucial for ecosystems such as wetlands, and fish.
Death toll from torrential rains in Mexico rises to 64 as search expands
Heavy rainfall on October 8 and 9 caused rivers to burst their banks in east Mexico. The death toll over the week touched 64 on Monday, CNN reported. Early official estimates note 100,000 affected homes, and in some cases, houses near rivers “practically disappeared,” the news channel reported. The NYT quoted Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum saying:“There were no scientific or meteorological conditions that could have indicated to us that the rainfall would be of this magnitude.”
Heavy showers killed 29 people in Veracruz state on the Gulf Coast on October 13, and 21 people in Hidalgo state, north of Mexico City. At least 13 were killed in Puebla, east of Mexico City. Earlier, in the central state of Querétaro, a child died in a landslide, CNN reported.
Many rescued as remnants of typhoon hits Alaska
Typhoon Halong hit western Alaska with “hurricane-force winds and ravaging storm surges and floodwaters that swept some homes away” over the weekend, the Associated Press reported. One person died and two are missing and over 50 people had to be rescued, some from rooftops. Alaska’s two US senators, Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan, said they would “continue to focus on climate resilience and infrastructure funds for Alaska”, the news wire reported.
Leading economist’s warning: Trump’s place in Florida vulnerable to extreme hurricanes and sea level rise
The Guardian quoted economist Lord Stern who said that “investment in climate action is the economic growth story of the 21st century”. Stern also spoke about fragile geopolitics and US president Donald Trump, saying: “I’d point out to him that his place in Florida is going to be extremely vulnerable to more intense hurricanes, sea level rise and storm surges. The people and places he loves are under severe risk.” In another report, the Guardian published an interview of Mary Lawlor, UN special rapporteur for human rights defenders. She accused the US, UK and other governments of “paying lip service to climate goals while criminalizing activists”.
Photo: Bhupendra Yadav
COP30 should be the COP of adaptation, says environment minister Bhupendra Yadav
Union environment minister Bhupender Yadav said COP30 at Belém in Brazil should be the COP of adaptation, HT and several other outlets reported. Yadav was speaking at the Pre-COP30 meeting in Brasilia. He said COP30 must send a political message that multilateralism remains the cornerstone of global climate action. “We should all agree on a minimum package of indicators from the UAE-Belem Work Programme, leaving some of the rest for further technical discussion as necessary”, he said.
He said with the Paris Agreement mechanism fully operational, now is not the time to undermine its architecture by insisting on post-global stocktake processes that seek to prescribe new mechanisms. “Let us be informed by the first GST (global stock take) and do our utmost as per our national circumstances,” he said.
India is likely to unveil its first national adaptation plan ahead of or at the UN Climate Meeting (COP30) at Belem, Brazil. The national adaptation plan and an update to India’s nationally determined contribution (NDC) for the 2035 period are currently under review and expected to be taken up for Cabinet approval very soon, HT said citing ‘those aware of the matter’.
India announces emission intensity targets for industries participating in carbon market
The Centre set greenhouse gas emission intensity targets for companies participating in the domestic carbon credit trading scheme, HT reported.
The sectors of aluminium, cement, chlor-alkali, paper and pulp will have to, “achieve the greenhouse gas emission intensity targets in the respective compliance year as per the Schedule; surrender the banked carbon credit certificates or carbon credit certificates purchased in the respective compliance year equivalent to the shortfall to comply with the greenhouse gas emission intensity target; and register on the portal under the Indian Carbon Market Framework.”, the outlet said.
Targets have been issued for 3 companies in aluminium; 253 in iron and steel sector; 21 in petroleum refining; 11 in petrochemicals; 11 in naphtha; 173 spinning/textile units registered under the scheme, the report said.
Climate litigations escalating, cases being heard by Indian courts, too: UN report
Court cases related to climate change issues are increasing globally, including in India, where so far 14 such cases have been registered in courts, found a new UN report.
HT reported that the new report titled, Global Climate Litigation Report 2025: Climate Change in the Courtroom – Trends, Impacts and Emerging Lessons by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, concluded that over 3,099 climate-related cases have been filed across 55 jurisdictions and 24 international or regional courts, tribunal and quasi-judicial bodies as of June 30. India has registered 14 such cases so far.
Indian cases relate to air pollution, deforestation, renewable energy obligations, climate adaptation, and the right to a clean and healthy environment under the Indian Constitution, UNEP said. HT noted that the Supreme Court of India and National Green Tribunal (NGT), have increasingly integrated climate considerations into judgments, emphasising the state’s duty to safeguard citizens’ rights against the impacts of climate change.
The outlet explained that the Supreme Court “recognised the right to a healthy environment and the right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change when balancing the protection of an endangered species threatened by an overhead transmission line connecting to a renewable energy project (Mk Ranjitsinh & Ors. v. Union Of India & Ors.).149-“. The Court balanced the need for a just energy transition within the context of the long-term emission reduction goals of the Paris Agreement with conservation priorities, the report said
China continues to curb critical minerals export, 31% drop in 3 months
China’s new export curbs on critical minerals (crucial for auto, defence and electronic industry) last week “threatened a trade truce with Washington, and the three months of declines are expected to raise questions about its agreements with Europe and the US to ramp up exports after China’s decision to restrict shipments in April triggered shortages worldwide” Reuters reported, adding that China’s rare earth exports “fell 31% in September from August”.
The Financial Times reported China “slammed Donald Trump’s plan to impose additional 100% tariffs on Chinese exports and threatened new countermeasures”, accusing the US of “escalating tensions” between the two countries. Bloomberg reported that, despite tariff standoff, China’s overall exports “grew at the fastest in six months, far exceeding forecasts in a sign of resilience that’s giving Beijing a stronger hand in the latest dispute with the US”.
Meanwhile, HT reported that US treasury secretary Scott Bessent said “This is China versus the world.” “We have already been in touch with allies…We will be meeting with them this week, and I expect that we will get substantial global support — from the Europeans, from the Indians from the democracies in Asia.”
HT report added that India, which faces massive US tariffs at 50%, finds itself in the middle of this new battle, with the US expecting it to ally with it even when PM Narendra Modi recently made an eastward move by visiting China, seeking to reset ties affected badly by border clashes about five years ago.
The Supreme Court allowed, “as temporary measure” the sale and bursting of green crackers approved by the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) from October 18 to October 21, and restricted the timings to 6 am to 7 am and 8 pm to 10 pm, the Indian Express reported. Only licensed traders can sell green crackers manufactured by those who are registered with the NEERI,” the court said, adding no sale or purchase of fire crackers through e-commerce sites will be allowed.
Firecrackers from outside the NCR region won’t be allowed. The use of firecrackers with barium and those not approved by NEERI as green crackers shall not be permitted, the court said.
The sale shall be permitted only from the designated location in the entire National Capital Region, which shall be identified by the district collector and the district superintendent of police and given wide publicity, the top court ordered.
GRAP-1 kicks in as Delhi-NCR air quality breaches ‘poor’ 200 AQI mark ahead of Diwali
A week ahead of Diwali, Delhi implemented stage one restrictions of Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP) on Tuesday. The plan kicks in when the air quality index crosses 200. Soon after the withdrawal of southwest monsoon, Delhi’s AQI breached the ‘poor’ category with the reading pegged at 201 as of 10:30 am, according to the Air Quality Early Warning System. Multiple localities remained in the ‘poor’ air quality zone. Anand Vihar was the worst with the AQI shooting up to 365 (very poor).
“Data from the Central Pollution Control Board showed that on Tuesday at 4 PM, the 24-hour average AQI stood at 211—the first reading in this range since June 11, when it was 245. Experts said the deterioration in air quality is due to a dip in both wind speed and night temperature,” reported HT.
The newspaper noted that the situation is likely to worsen around Diwali, “in line with the annual phenomenon of the air becoming toxic, due to the bursting of firecrackers.” Emissions from traffic and smoke from crop burning in the neighbouring states further exacerbate the situation. “Forecasts by the Centre’s Air Quality Early Warning System (EWS) for Delhi show no relief ahead, with “very poor” AQI likely around or after Diwali,” said the newspaper report.
Govt plans to exempt green nod for solid waste facilities
The Centre proposed to exempt Common Effluent Treatment Plants (CETPs) and Common Municipal Solid Waste Management Facilities (CMSWMFs), including those having landfill sites, from getting prior environmental clearance, the Business Standard reported. The environment ministry proposed to exempt these sectors because of their low pollution potential, according to a report by HT.
The report said two draft notifications by the environment ministry on October 1 and 3, say “the exemption will apply to both facilities, subject to environmental safeguards being implemented and monitored through the existing consent mechanism by state pollution control boards and pollution control committees.”
The government said CETPs and CMSWMFs are governed by strong regulatory frameworks under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, and the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, which ensure regular monitoring, inspections and mandatory reporting.
NGT Seeks Detailed Action Plan On Howrah Waste Management
National Green Tribunal (NGT), India’s green court, sought a detailed action plan for waste and sewage management in Howrah to ensure effective implementation, monitoring and transparency, TOI reported. The court was hearing a plea following the sudden collapse of garbage mountain at the legacy dump site at Belgachia Trenching ground, leading to damage to the water pipeline, and becoming a life threat to people living near it. The court directed top civil authorities to remain present at the next hearing and furnish detailed action plans for clearing legacy waste, as well as managing and disposing of solid waste and sewage, along with specific information on: actions already taken, steps proposed, project-wise targets, budgetary allocations, and timelines for completion.
Howrah’s legacy dumps, unscientific disposal practices, and untreated sewage discharge into the Hooghly river are persistent issues.
MP govt mixes seized sand with soil to fight illegal mining in National Chambal Sanctuary
To tackle illegal sand mining near National Chambal Sanctuary, sand seized from vehicles like tractor trolleys is mixed with soil to render it unusable, the environment department, Madhya Pradesh told the National Green Tribunal (NGT), reported DTE.
In 2024, 46,118.55 cubic metres of sand was seized and 45,799 cubic metres was destroyed, the government affidavit said.
The government said it had organised taskforce meetings at all levels for formulating strategies for combating illegal sand mining. The taskforce for each district comprises the district magistrate, superintendent of police and the divisional forest officer, the outlet said.
Andhra Pradesh to NGT: State is processing all solid and liquid waste 100%
Andhra Pradesh told the National Green Tribunal (NGT) that 100% of the municipal solid waste generated in the state is being processed, reported DTE.
The outlet noted that the government said total waste generated is 7,527 TPD, of which wet waste is 4,471 TPD and dry waste is 3.056 TPD. The wet waste is being processed through waste-to-compost plants, bioCNG plants and windrow composting. The state’s urban local bodies (ULB) process waste for making compost in sheds and also through windrow composting in open areas, where processing plants are not available. Some 3,056 TPD of dry waste generated is being processed through material recovery facilities, waste-to-energy plants and cement plants, the report said.
The state processed 8.39 million tonnes of legacy waste out of the total legacy waste of 8.59 million tonnes. In 90 ULBs, 100% remediation is completed and in the remaining 33 ULBs, work is in progress to complete the balanced legacy waste of 199,000 tonnes shortly, the outlet cited state data.
Unauthorised construction & waste dumping : NGT directs CIDCO, Forest Department to restore Coastal Regulation Zone sites in Raigad
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) pulled up CIDCO, (government company incharge of building housing and commercial spaces) and the Forest Department for failing to fully restore CRZ-1 sites in Raigad, Maharashtra, reported the Hindu. The court ordered urgent clean-up and compliance within a month. The green court’s Western Zone Bench in Pune directed the City and Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) of Maharashtra, and the State Forest Department, to restore three Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ-1) sites in Raigad district within one month, and submit a compliance report thereafter,
Carmakers chose to cheat to sell cars rather than comply with emissions law, ‘dieselgate’ trial told
In the ongoing ‘dieselgate’ trail (companies programmed engines that met emission standards only in lab, but not on road) Mercedes, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Peugeot/Citroën face group action in which damages could exceed £6 billion, reported the Guardian.
Carmakers preferred cheating to prioritise “customer convenience” and sell cars than comply with the law on deadly pollutants, the first day of “the largest group action trial in English legal history” has been told, the report said.
The newspaper noted that over a decade after the original “dieselgate” scandal broke, lawyers representing 1.6 million diesel car owners in the UK argue that manufacturers deliberately installed software to rig emissions tests.
They alleged the “prohibited defeat devices” could detect when the cars were under test conditions and ensure that harmful NOx emissions were kept within legal limits, duping regulators and drivers.
The three-month hearing opened at London’s high court on Monday against Mercedes, Ford, Renault, Nissan and Peugeot/Citroën – from 2009. In “real world” conditions, when driven on the road, lawyers argue, the cars produced much higher levels of emissions, the outlet said.
Hiking shoes and gear, big source of microplastics in wilderness, study shows
Hiking shoes and outdoor gear may be a huge source of microplastic pollution in the wilderness, new research that checked for the material in several Adirondack mountain lakes in upstate New York suggests, the Guardian reported.
The outlet said the scientists measured microplastic levels in two lakes that are the among highest sources of water for the Hudson River – one that sees heavy foot traffic from hikers, and another lake rarely touched by human activity.
The samples from the lake that sees heavier foot traffic showed levels that were about 23 times higher.
Soft-soled trail shoes and synthetic clothing “appear to be significant contributors to microplastics finding their way into these remote, otherwise pristine waters”, Tim Keyes, who worked on the project, told the outlet.
Ozone pollution events in China to grow by 58% by 2050, under a medium emissions scenario
Concurrent heatwave and ozone pollution events pose a great threat to health, new research published in Nature said. Yet the impacts of future warming on such compound extremes and the associated health risks remain unclear, the outlet said. Scientists used dynamic downscaling techniques and multi-model ensembles to estimate excess deaths attributed to heatwave-ozone compound extremes from climate change under Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs). Scientists found that, driven by future climate change, ozone pollution events in China are projected to grow by 58% by the middle of the century, half of which are also heatwave days. Consequently, the heatwave-ozone compound event exposure rises by a factor of two, causing an additional 61,600 deaths nationwide.
India is confident it will meet the 500 GW target of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030, Pralhad Joshi, minister of new and renewable energy said at the curtain raiser of the eighth assembly of International Solar Alliance, HT reported. On updating NDCs (Nationally determined contributions), he said India has already achieved one of its NDCs which was to achieve about 50% of the cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel-based energy resources by 2030, HT reported.
“Our goal is to achieve 500 GW by 2030. We are on track. We have 162 GW in the pipeline presently. I am confident that we will achieve that goal,” Joshi said.
Official data puts India’s total power capacity as of June 30 at 484.8 GW, with 242.04 GW (49.92%) from thermal/coal, 8.78 GW (1.81%) from nuclear, and 234 GW (48.27%) from renewable sources.
India adds 4.9GW of rooftop solar under PM scheme, only 13% target met: Study
India added 4.9 GW of residential solar rooftop capacity in the Prime Minister scheme Pradhan Mantri Surya Ghar Yojana (PMSGY), but only 13.1% target of 1 crore installations have been met, says research by IEEFA, reported CarbonCopy This was despite a four-fold increase in applications between March 2024 and July 2025, the research said.
The report also found that only 14.1% of the allocated ₹65,700 crore ($7 billion) in subsidies have been released till July 2025. The report added that at this rate meeting the target of 30GW by 2027 remains a challenge. Access to finance and lack of consumer awareness were barriers to adoption of rooftop solar, the study said.
Solar module capacity under ALMM grows by 6.9 GW in October 2025
India’s solar module manufacturing capacity under Approved List of Models and Manufacturers (ALMM) now stands at 116.46 GW as the Centre updated the list adding a capacity of 6922 MW.
India’s solar module manufacturing capacity under ALMM became 100 GW in August 2025 in over 10 years, up from 2.3 GW in 2014, reported Mercom.
Centre unveils $77Bn hydropower plan for 77GW by 2047 in Brahmaputra basin in N-E, Arunachal Pradesh to be the hub
The Centre announced ₹6.7 trillion ($77 billion) plan to supply 77GW of hydro power by 2047 from the ecologically rich and fragile Brahmaputra basin in the northeast, according to a report by Central Electricity Authority (CEA). The master plan includes 208 large hydro projects across 12 sub-basins in the northeast, ET reported.
CEA said based on their assessment of the “substantial hydroelectric potential” of the Brahmaputra basin, they prepared a master plan to evacuate a 65GW of hydroelectric power across 12 basins and 11GW from pumped-storage projects.
The basin includes parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, and West Bengal, accounting for 80% untapped hydro potential of India. Arunachal alone accounts for 52.2GW potential, ET reported.
Mongabay India reported that “2,200MW hydroelectric power project has been cleared for construction in Arunachal Pradesh, on the condition that project developers integrate simulations of glacial lake outburst flood scenarios into its design. However, the impact assessment for the project does not acknowledge the forest cover of the district or that the river hosts endangered species.” The outlet noted that the region falls in Seismic Zone V. “Indigenous communities raise concerns for several such large dams planned across the state, and their potential impact on biodiversity, cultivation of medicinal plants, and traditional grazing lands.”
Global renewable energy generation surpasses coal for first time
Wind and solar farms worldwide have generated more electricity than coal plants for the first time this year, “marking a turning point for the global power system,” according to research, the Guardian reported.
A report by the climate thinktank Ember found that in the first six months of 2025, renewable energy “outpaced the world’s growing appetite for electricity, leading to a small decline in coal and gas use,” the outlet said.
The world generated almost a third more solar power in the first half of the year compared with the same period in 2024, meeting 83% of the global increase in electricity demand. Wind power grew by just over 7%, allowing renewables to displace fossil fuels for the first time.
The milestone represents “a crucial turning point”, according to Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, a senior electricity analyst at Ember and the author of the report.
US plans to cancel one of the world’s largest solar farms
The US is set to cancel a 6.2 GW solar plant, the largest solar project in North America, reported the Financial Times, “As the Trump administration expands its attack on the embattled renewable energy industry”. The newspaper said: : “Late on Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management scrapped approval for Esmeralda 7, a 6.2 gigawatt project that could have powered nearly 2m homes. It had begun the permitting process under the Biden administration.” The seven solar farms “would have covered about 62,300 acres [25,200 hectares] of federal lands in the Nevada desert north-west of Las Vegas”, the newspaper continued. Industry observers predict that Esmeralda 7 “won’t be the last major project in the pipeline to be pulled”, said Politico. The Guardian said that the interior department “appeared to leave open the possibility that at least parts of the project could be resubmitted for review”.
US: Groups sue EPA over cancelled $7bn for solar energy
A group of solar energy companies, unions, NGOs and homeowners filed a lawsuit against the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over its decision to cancel $7 billion in grants, which were “intended to help low- and moderate-income families install solar panels on their homes”, NYT reported. The lawsuit accuses the EPA of “illegally revoking the money under the Solar for All program without congressional approval”. The Associated Press reported the lawsuit calls the Trump administration’s termination of the program illegal and they want a federal judge to direct the EPA to reinstate it. The programme is affiliated with another $20 billion in green funding also terminated under president Donald Trump that EPA administrator Lee Zeldin had characterised as a fraudulent scheme fraught with waste.
India Launched First E-Truck With Swappable Batteries. Photo: Pixabay
India Launched First E-Truck With Swappable Batteries
Union Minister HD Kumaraswamy and Nitin Gadkari inaugurated India’s first heavy duty e-truck with swappable batteries and a swap cum charging stations, reported ET Auto. The swappable batteries technology will allow electric truck batteries in about seven minutes, compared to conventional two hours for charging.
This initiative aims to promote energy efficiency in logistics and with the vision of achieving energy independence by 2047 and net-zero emissions by 2070.
Delhi to Double Two-Wheeler EV Subsidies and Tax Perks for Scrapping ICE Vehicles
Delhi’s upcoming EV policy will double the EV subsidies for two-wheelers, expand charging infrastructure, and tax perks for scrapping internal combustible engine (ICE) vehicles switch to EV, reported Business Standard.
The new policy aims to tackle the issue for commercial EV users by directing the installation of two-wheeler charging points in marketplaces and high-delivery zones.
China to Tighten Exports on Lithium-ion Battery Components From November
China has tightened exports on specific lithium battery components and related manufacturing components. The exporters from November will have to apply for a permit from the Ministry of Commerce of China, reported Autocarpro.
China has also expanded its export control over rare earth and related technologies. The control measures will expand its control to five medium-to-heavy rare mineral elements such as holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, and ytterbium.
Toyota, Sumitomo Metal Develop Solid-state Batteries for EVs
Toyota and Sumitomo metal mining made advances in the development of cathode materials for solid batteries for electric cars and will work together to mass produce the material, reported Reuters. The world’s largest carmaker is looking to launch solid state batteries in 2027 or 2028.
Although, the mass production remains way off due to constraints in raw material availability, intricate manufacturing processes, and high costs.
China’s Clean Energy Tech Exports Hit Record, Beats US in Energy Sector
China’s exports of electric vehicles, solar panels, batteries, and other clean technologies hit a record $120 billion in August, compared to US’ $80billion in oil and gas exports during the same time, reported Bloomberg.
China’s exports in emerging markets are growing rapidly as the price of solar panels are declining. This year, more than half of China’s electric car exports have come from outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Indian states are signing more coal power deals over a long term to meet the surge in evening power demand, despite efforts to expand clean energy capacity. Photo: Pixabay
Indian States Sign More Long-Term Coal Power Deals Over Rising Demand
The Indian state is signing more coal power deals over a long term to meet the surge in evening power demand, despite efforts to expand clean energy capacity, reported Reuters.
Uttar Pradesh and Assam which recently withdrew incentives for clean energy projects are looking to sign purchase deals for at least 7 GW of coal fired power plants to be delivered in 2030, This rush in procurement is fueled by a rise in air conditioning demand under non-solar hours and the slow buildout of battery storage.
Leading Indian Power Producers to Invest ₹5.5 lakh crore to Expand Coal Energy by 2032
India’s leading power producers Adani Power, Torrent Power, JSW Energy, and state-owned NTPC are pushing to expand coal to more than 50GW by 2032 and have lined up investment ₹5.5 lakh crore, reported ET Energyworld. They will continue to invest in renewables.
This fresh investment comes after increasing demand for electricity from industrial, commercial, and residential segments as well as urbanisation.
Indian Refiners May Buy More Russian Oil as the Discount on Urals Rise
Indian refiners may buy more Russian oil as the discount on Urals rise in the coming months as trade talks with the US drag on, reported Bloomberg. Discounts on Urals in November are $2 to $2.50 a barrel to Dated Brent. This is also cheaper than the July-August of $1 a barrel, when supplies were tight.
Amid the tariff hikes from the US, India has also started talks with National Oil companies in the Middle-east and Africa for term deals for 2026.
China Speeds Up Construction for Oil Reserve Site to Boost Crude Stockpiles
China is speeding up the construction of oil reserves sites to boost crude stockpiles after the escalation of Russian invasion on Ukraine that upended global energy flows this year. State oil companies including Sinopec and CNOOC will add 169m barrels of storage across 11 sites in the span of two years, reported Reuters.
This plan will help mitigate China’s heavy dependence on foreign oil through storage and diversification of import sources and maintaining domestic production. The country is also rapidly developing renewable energy and electrifying its vehicles with oil consumption likely to peak in 2027.
BP Projects India’s Oil Demand to Hit 9mn bpd by 2050, Coal to Stay Dominant
Spencer Dole, chief economist at BP projected that India’s oil demand will hit 9 million barrels per day (bpd) of total global consumption in 2050. Coal will remain the country’s largest source of energy in its current trajectory, reported Business Standard.
Renewable energy is set to become India’s second largest source of primary energy in 2050 and largest in below 2 degree scenario. Energy consumption in the form of electricity will also go up by 30%.