Bhasker Tripathi

In a dim room off a crowded alley in northeast Delhi, Shahjahan sits on the floor peeling wires with a knife. Her two children sort copper beside her, taking care to avoid tripping on scrap when they move across the room.

She earns a few hundred rupees, or about $2, a day by breaking down discarded electronics brought in by small scrap dealers.

U.N. COP30 climate summit host Brazil is pressing nations to pledge to quadruple the global use of sustainable fuels by 2035, including biofuels, hydrogen and biogases, but environmentalists warn that making fuel from crops harms food security and nature.

"When land grows fuel instead of food, someone else must clear more land, or eat less," said Timothy Searchinger, senior research scholar at Princeton University.

At the U.N. COP30 climate summit in Brazil, several countries are pushing for more biofuels, made from crops like sugarcane and maize, as cleaner and cheaper substitutes for petrol.

At a pre-COP30 meeting in its capital last month, Brazil, backed by Japan, Italy and India, called for the quadrupling of global sustainable fuel production, including biofuels, by 2035.

India's effort to formalise its sprawling electronic waste sector that retrieves valuable critical minerals and rare earth metals from discarded electronics has sparked a legal showdown with some of the world's largest electronics companies.

Samsung, LG, Daikin, Carrier and other producers have sued the Indian government over rules requiring them to increase the proportion of their electronic waste they recycle to 80% by March next year and pay a fixed price to authorised recyclers. The companies argue the rules are costly and difficult to implement.

India is the world's third-largest producer of electronic waste like computer chips and batteries, known as 'e-waste', according to U.N. figures released last year.

Now the country wants to use its growing scrap heap as a source of critical minerals for its clean energy transition, from lithium to rare earth metals that power solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.

India's rapid shift to a fuel known as E20 - in which petrol is blended with 20% ethanol - has worried drivers who say the new mix is cutting mileage and putting strain on their engines.

Biofuels such as ethanol, which is made from crops like sugarcane and maize, are promoted as cleaner substitutes for petrol that can cut costly oil imports and climate-heating emissions.

Only some 20% of new petrol vehicles sold in India in the last 15 years are compliant with petrol blended with 20% ethanol (E20), analysis of government and industry data shows.

India's government is pushing for a rapid rollout of E20 and said in July it had reached its goal of selling the fuel five years ahead of schedule, replacing the existing 10% blend.

Countries in the Global South hold most of the world's reserves of critical minerals needed for the clean energy transition, but see few of the profits, according to a new report.

Critical minerals have moved from industrial policy to the heart of climate diplomacy and will be a live issue at COP30 in Belém, Brazil in November as governments seek secure, sustainable supplies for batteries, solar panels and other clean technologies.

Millions of India's shrimp farmers and garment workers are likely to be hit hard by U.S. President Donald Trump's hike in tariffs on Indian exports to as high as 50%.

The United States is India's biggest buyer of seafood and textiles, two of its most labour-intensive industries. Together they employ millions of farmers, factory workers and processors whose livelihoods depend on steady U.S. demand.

As India adds more biofuel ethanol to its petrol, consumers are filling social media with complaints that the fuel mix is hurting their engines and cutting into vehicle mileage ranges.

The government's fast-expanding ethanol programme aims to cut costly oil imports by blending petrol with ethanol, a biofuel made from crops like sugarcane or from organic waste that burns more cleanly than does pure petrol.