This International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) & Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) three-part commentary series takes a deep dive into how India’s energy sector is coping with the impacts of COVID-19 and what this means for the sustainable energy transition. We explore three key themes.

• Part 1 – Financial Sustainability: Bailing out India’s electricity sector
• Part 2 – Environmental Sustainability: Tracking COVID-19 support for fossil fuels and renewables in India
• Part 3 – Social Sustainability: Energy affordability and pricing reform in India

This workstream is linked to global efforts to track government support for fossil fuels and renewables in light of COVID-19, as reported in the Energy Policy Tracker launched in July 2020 by IISD in partnership with 13 other organizations.

Part 2 – Environmental Sustainability: Tracking COVID-19 support for fossil fuels and renewables in India

Government responses to the pandemic have raised serious concerns about the global prospects for a transition from fossil fuel to cleaner sources of energy. These concerns are not unfounded: energypolicytracker.org shows that G20 governments have pledged USD 169 billion to fossil fuels during the COVID-19 crisis and only USD 138 billion to clean energy (as of August 14, 2020). India specifically has seen a concerted effort to decrease dependence on imported coal by easing business for domestic coal.

IISD and CEEW organized a webinar session on July 27 to dissect some of these emerging trends in the Indian power sector. This commentary synthesizes highlights from IISD’s tracking efforts and the webinar. A recording of the webinar is available here, and full details on the session, including presentations, are available at the end of the commentary.