‘India needs more awareness about the climate challenge it faces’: Akshat Rathi

In India, things have been tough on the environmental front of late. Media reports suggest that recent laws, such as amendments to the Biological Diversity Act and the Forest Conservation Act, have made it easier to chop down forests and reduce the penalties for violating such laws. Akshat Rathi, who wrote about the UK’s landmark Climate Change Act of 2008 in his new book , says that while countries such as India could consider adopting the basic framework of the UK climate law, the immediate challenge for climate activists here was to raise awareness about how many of the problems that the country—be it water issues, air pollution, droughts, heat waves, or lower productivity on agriculture—are because of climate change.

Spread across five continents, Akshat Rathi’s (John Murray Press, 2023) tracks the unlikely heroes driving the fight against climate change. Through stories that bring people, policy, and technology together, he reveals how the green economy is not just possible, but profitable. Akshat Rathi is a senior reporter for Bloomberg News based in London, UK, and the host of “Zero”, a climate podcast for Bloomberg Green.

He has a PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Oxford, and a BTech in chemical engineering from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai. Akshat has worked for Quartz, and the Royal Society of Chemistry. His writings have also been published in , , , Ars Technica, and , among others.

In an interview with Akshat Rathi discusses his book, China’s electric vehicle revolution, India’s push towards renewable energy, Bill Gates’ efforts towards technological solutions to the climate challenge, the problems with emerging technologies such as carbon capture, and the events at COP28 in Dubai, among other things.

COMMents.