An observation on status of india's environmental policies

Over the last december, I travelled across six cities in India. As always, I was struck by the richness of the food, the diversity of cultures, and the everyday resilience of people navigating dense, complex urban environments. Yet alongside these familiar joys, something else kept surfacing—both for me and my partner.

Persistent dust allergies. A tightness in the chest after long days outdoors. The habit of checking the AQI before leaving the house, not out of curiosity, but necessity.

At first, this felt like a personal inconvenience, the kind one dismisses as part of city life. But as it repeated across cities, it became harder to ignore. This was not just about sensitivity or seasonal variation. It was a pattern—and patterns, more often than not, are shaped by systems.

That realisation led me to ask a different question: what exactly is going wrong, and where does climate policy fit into this everyday experience?

From Lived Experience to Policy Reality

To better understand the broader context, I turned to the Climate Action Tracker, an independent platform that evaluates countries based on how well their climate policies align with scientific benchmarks.

India’s overall rating on the platform is Insufficient. In practical terms, this means that current policies are not aligned with limiting global warming to 1.5°C. If all countries followed a similar trajectory, global temperatures would rise well beyond levels considered safe by climate science, potentially exceeding 2°C and even approaching 3°C within this century.

This assessment does not suggest that India is inactive or indifferent. On the contrary, it highlights a more nuanced reality: progress exists, but it is not yet sufficient in scale or speed.

Real Progress, With Structural Limits

India has made undeniable strides in clean energy deployment. Renewable energy installations have increased rapidly, and solar capacity in particular has expanded dramatically over the past decade. According to the World Bank, India’s solar capacity has grown more than twenty-fold since 2014, placing it among the fastest clean energy scale-ups globally.

This progress matters. It demonstrates institutional capacity, market interest, and technological feasibility at scale.

However, clean energy growth alone does not automatically translate into emissions reduction or improved air quality. Coal continues to dominate electricity generation in India, and while renewable capacity has grown, coal’s share of total power output has declined only marginally. In effect, renewables are being added without a corresponding phase-down of fossil fuels.

This dynamic also shows up in India’s climate targets. Goals such as achieving 50% non-fossil power capacity by 2030 sound ambitious and are often cited as evidence of leadership. Yet current policies already place India on track to meet these targets, meaning they do not compel additional emissions reductions beyond existing trends.

In policy terms, ambition without stretch does not deliver transformation.

Emerging Ideas, Unfinished Pathways

To its credit, India is actively exploring new policy instruments and technologies. Green hydrogen strategies, carbon market frameworks, and decarbonisation pathways for hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement, and fertilisers are increasingly part of national discussions. These sectors are critical, as they account for a substantial share of emissions and are among the most difficult to decarbonise.

Yet many of these initiatives remain at an early stage. They often lack clearly defined timelines, binding commitments to absolute emissions reductions, or robust implementation frameworks. Without these elements, promising ideas risk remaining aspirational rather than operational.

Clean Energy Does Not Equal Clean Air

What made these policy gaps feel especially tangible during my travels was the persistent disconnect between clean energy progress and lived air quality.

Despite having national air quality standards and action plans, India continues to host many of the world’s most polluted cities. PM2.5 concentrations routinely exceed safe limits by several multiples, a trend repeatedly documented by the World Bank and other international agencies.

This is not primarily a problem of policy absence. Environmental laws and regulatory frameworks do exist.

The more persistent challenge lies in enforcement.

National policy design in India is often technically sound, but implementation depends heavily on state and city-level capacity. Funding constraints, limited monitoring infrastructure, fragmented institutional responsibilities, and uneven political prioritisation all shape outcomes on the ground. Where these capacities lag, policy intent fails to translate into measurable improvements in air quality.

As a result, cities can experience rapid clean energy expansion at the national level while remaining trapped in cycles of pollution locally.

The Equity Dimension Beneath the Numbers

There is another aspect that deserves far more attention: who bears the cost of this misalignment.

Air pollution and climate risks in India are not evenly distributed. Lower-income households are two to three times more exposed to poor air quality, extreme heat, and environmental hazards than wealthier groups, according to World Bank research. These communities are more likely to live near traffic corridors, industrial areas, or informal waste-burning sites, and they have fewer resources to mitigate exposure.

When environmental policy focuses on aggregate targets while overlooking distributional outcomes, it creates a quiet form of failure. Progress may appear positive in national statistics, while vulnerability deepens at the local level.

In such cases, climate action can be technically successful and socially unjust at the same time.

What Alignment Would Actually Require

India is not stuck, nor is it short on ideas or capacity. The policy levers exist.

However, meaningful alignment with a 1.5°C pathway would require confronting difficult trade-offs. Renewable energy expansion must be paired with a faster and clearer coal phase-down. Climate finance must prioritise making clean energy cheaper and more accessible than fossil alternatives. State-level institutions need greater investment, authority, and accountability to translate national ambition into local outcomes.

Equally important is recognising the role of energy efficiency. Reducing demand—particularly in buildings, cooling, and transport—is one of the fastest and least visible ways to cut emissions while delivering immediate air quality and health benefits.

India has momentum. But momentum alone does not equal alignment.

Ultimately, climate policy should not be judged solely by the ambition of its targets or the scale of its announcements. It should be evaluated by its ability to improve everyday life—by outcomes as fundamental as the ability to breathe without discomfort.

That is where climate targets, policy design, and lived experience must finally converge.

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