CEEW

Delhi's air turns twice each winter, and only the first turn gets the headlines. The first PM2.5 peak arrives with the stubble burning season and pushes the weekly average past 250 µg/m³—the 'severe' threshold on India's air quality index. That peak has been the subject of many TV debates. The reason it recurs is duller than the debates. A long-duration paddy variety leaves a farmer about 20 days to clear the field before wheat has to go in. Whether it burns depends on what else is available to them in those 20 days, and at what cost. Our work across Punjab and Haryana has been around these questions and behaviours. A survey of 1,500 farmers across 12 Haryana districts, and another on monitoring burning from space, is out later this week. Both are about where help is still needed. The second peak follows weeks later: winter biomass burning. Through the coldest weeks, wood, dung cakes, crop waste and whatever else is to hand are burnt for warmth—on construction sites, at guard posts in gated housing colonies, in homes in informal settlements with no affordable alternative. Thousands of small fires rather than one large source, which is what makes it hard to see and harder to govern. The rest of the year is the relatively cleaner stretch. Through the monsoon, weekly averages fall to around 27 µg/m³, inside the national 24-hour standard of 60, and about a tenth of what the city breathes at its November peak. Delhi has just had its October: the month everyone photographs, when the saptaparni comes into flower and the whole city smells of it. On this chart and outside our windows, that month is the end of the cleaner stretch, with the line already climbing. In a jugalbandi, two musicians play different instruments in the same composition. Neither leads, neither follows. This winter we will be talking about both halves of the answer: what a citizen can do, and what the state must. Stay with us. Check out our work on Clean Air: ceew.in/publications?field_f…

In this week’s #CEEWExplains, Nicole Almeida digs into a new CEEW–NRDC study on India’s green jobs to find out where the work is, who’s being left out, and what it will take to get India’s workforce ready for 2030.

Delhi moved from ‘Moderate’ to ‘Very Poor’ within two days in early November, and restrictions have since been put in place under GRAP stage III. After Diwali, the firecracker contribution fell sharply, yet after the brief dip, the air returned to the ‘Very Poor’ range. Prarthana Borah, Fellow at CEEW, highlights that in the coming days, vehicular tailpipe emissions and road dust together remain the highest contributors to PM 2.5 pollution in Delhi. @prarthana_delhi

#Opinion | Expectations from the UN climate conference In @Lokmat_Samachar, @sumitprd, Senior Programme Lead at CEEW, writes: When warming is breaching its limits, adaptation is not an option but a question of survival. Climate finance growth slowed to 2.5% in 2025, from 6% in 2024 and 16% in 2023. Read the full piece:

#Opinion | India’s climate-tech challenge: Bridging the industry–incubator gap India has no shortage of climate-tech innovators — or capital. Yet too many promising startups struggle to move beyond pilots and secure the industry partnerships, procurement pathways and market validation needed to scale. In @htTweets, @GunjanJ3 (Senior Programme Lead, CEEW) and Srivardhini Jha (Professor of Entrepreneurship, IIM Bangalore) argue for a new model of climate-tech incubation, where industry and incubators work together much earlier — from identifying real operational challenges to creating pathways for first deployment and procurement. The goal is to move beyond the “death by pilots” problem and help climate-tech innovations survive, scale and endure in real markets. Read the full piece 👇 hindustantimes.com/ht-insigh…

#Opinion | COP31: ‘35 by 35’ electrification goal is unrealistic for countries like India The presidency, held by Turkey as host, with Australia steering the negotiations, wants countries to raise the share of electricity in global final energy use to 35% by 2035. However, applying one number to every country would be unfair, because countries start from very different places and electrify for very different reasons. Large developed countries such as Australia, Canada, and the US had electricity shares of 21%-24% of energy use in 2023, roughly where they had been since 2010. For @scroll_in, @pallavi_saice and @Dr_VaibhavCh write: Antalya should adopt a goal with differentiated electrification pathways. For instance, India cannot electrify at the rate of Japan or Australia. Read the full op-ed here 👇scroll.in/article/1096966/co…

Marigolds all around, a beautiful rangoli, some chatpate gaane and snacks too 🌺🎵💃 Happy Diwali from all of us at CEEW! 🪔

🇹🇷 The countdown to #COP31 has begun! Several CEEW team members will be attending, and we’d love to connect with you there. We’re looking forward to taking part in a number of events leading up to and during @turkiyecop31. @JamesVAbraham, Ravi Prasad, @NitinBassiN, @ShuvaRaha, @sumitprd, Mehak Sudan, and Mayank Sharma will be on the ground. 📩 Reach out to us at [email protected] to know more on events, partnerships, and media queries.