Bhasker Tripathi

As climate-fuelled disasters become more frequent and intense, companies, countries and aid workers are experimenting with new models of insurance and financial help to manage growing risks and losses - among them, parametric insurance.

Parametric policies pay out a pre-agreed amount of money if certain criteria - such as an amount of rainfall or wind speed - are met, the assumption being that damage will have occurred under those conditions.

India is pushing to add more biofuels to its fuel in a bid to shift to cleaner energy. Its target of a 20% ethanol blend in its gasoline by the end of this year aims to reduce both tailpipe pollution and the country's reliance on imported oil and natural gas.  

Biofuels, produced from organic matter like plants, crops or waste, are seen as a greener alternative to the planet-heating fossil fuels that power more than 90% of global transport.

After years of low rainfall devastating soya bean crops on his central Indian farm, Dileep Patidar last year planted the pulse urad as it needs less water and he counted on the government's crop insurance scheme to cover him if it did not work out.

But the gamble failed and he lost nearly half his crop. Then the insurance money never came.

As the world rushes to secure minerals critical for rapidly-expanding clean energy technologies, India is joining the fray to try to meet its ambitious green energy goals.

India said in January the government and state mining companies would spend 343 billion Indian rupee ($3.94 billion) to boost local production, recycling and imports of critical minerals in a bid to secure enough for its energy transition, in an initiative coined the "National Critical Mineral Mission."

Indian music producers and publishers are seeking to join the news agency ANI in suing OpenAI, accusing the maker of ChatGPT of copyright infringement in the company's second biggest market after the United States.

The case could have serious implications for how India, an emerging key player in the global AI landscape, regulates generative AI (GenAI).

Farmer Jitendra Singh stopped flooding his rice fields in the northern Indian state of Haryana so they produce less polluting methane and he could get paid for the greenhouse gas emissions he saves, but three years on he has not received a single rupee.

Allowing companies to buy credits from projects that lock carbon away and use them to offset their emissions is seen by many environmental experts as an important way to help developing countries and custodians of the land like Singh protect the environment.

Countries around the world are producing more biofuels as a way to tackle climate change, but are they really greener than fossil fuels?

Biofuel production increased nine-fold between 2000 and 2020, and in 2023 G20 nations launched the Global Biofuel Alliance to try to expand the use of sustainable biofuels.

A new climate finance deal to fight global warming at the recently concluded COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, has left developing countries disappointed and livid.

Industrialised nations agreed to pay $300 billion per year by 2035 to help developing nations deal with the impact of climate change. That was far short of the $1.3 trillion a year by 2030 they had demanded at COP29 -- a number that developing countries say takes into account their most immediate needs.

As countries at COP29 discuss contributions to a new climate fund, a Pakistani minister told Context that his country's experience dealing with massive floods in 2022 has taught him that such funds can only work without much red tape.

Delegates at COP29 last week agreed to start disbursing money from the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage (FRLD), a fund to support developing nations suffering losses from climate change, and negotiations on the financial details are ongoing.

Famed for its Sun Temple dedicated to the sun god, Modhera in Gujarat state became India's first fully solar-powered village in 2022, but a legal case against the plant is still in court as residents seek compensation for losing 50 acres of grazing land.

Modhera's 6 megawatt (MW) solar plant and a linked battery storage system, which provide energy to the village's 6,000 people, were built in 2022 despite opposition from local farmers, who filed a case in the state's highest court in 2020 against its construction.