Innovation in design, policy key to climate action: Expert

Climate change mitigation strategies for the future will have to draw on a combination of innovative design, better public policy, entrepreneurship, and behavioural change, eminent energy analyst Amory Lovins said in Bengaluru on Monday.

He was speaking with Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani after delivering the Girish Karnad annual memorial New India Foundation (NIF) lecture.

Lovins underlined policy innovations like feebates that are followed in some of the European countries, where the purchase of energy-efficient vehicles comes with a rebate and a fee is imposed on vehicles with higher emissions. The consultant physicist has been, for five decades, advising firms and governments in more than 70 countries on energy, resources, economy, and environment.

Delivering the lecture themed ‘Can we innovate ourselves out of the climate crisis?’ at the Bangalore International Centre, Lovins said the standard assumption that clean energy transition comes at a higher cost than in the business-as-usual scenario was flawed.

India, with its talent, entrepreneurs and ambition could have a global advantage in addressing climate challenges as the world enters a “tricky phase” of identifying viable innovation for climate action.

Lovins, co-founder of Rocky Mountain Institute, said while the world was not short of climate change mitigation methods, what it needed was more effective deployment of these strategies.