Can Bureaucracies Be Sustainability Innovators?
How India’s Coal-Dependent Government Has Harnessed Its Power to Build Better and Cleaner
Bureaucracies are often thought of as stiflers of innovation and growth. But the Indian government, one of the biggest bureaucracies in the world, has made some surprising gains in the fight against climate change. In November of last year, at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi committed India to net-zero emissions by 2070. But the country, and its energy bureaucracy, which was built around carbon-emitting energy, already has made large-scale advances toward sustainability.
How did India do it, and how might the country’s entrenched …