Editorial 1: Sunset for the U.K.’s coal-fired power, lessons for India

Context

India could learn from the U.K.’s transition, ensuring that it does not make the mistakes Britain made.

 Introduction

The shuttering of Britain’s last coal-fired power plant, in Nottinghamshire, is a milestone and indicates the hastening of an ongoing paradigm shift in energy production globally. But this has by no means been a frictionless transition, as it has been portrayed in much of the press. There have also been calls to replicate the United Kingdom’s coal phase-out globally. While Britain’s experiment could hold good for a few developed economies, a far more tailor-made approach would be required for developing and least-developed nations. 

Britain’s Coal phaseout timeline

•  Not Starting in 2015: Britain’s coal phaseout must also not be viewed as beginning with its 2015 Paris pledge to bring down unabated coal-fired power to zero by 2025.
• 1952 Great Smog of London: leading to the enactment of environmental legislation such as the 1956 Clean Air Act and other protracted processes over a 70-year period, which included geo-political, environmental, economic and social pressures.
• The discovery of natural gas: in the North Sea in 1965 and the desire to move away from coal imports from the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War, as
  • depleting domestic reserves made mining uneconomical,
  • thereby jacking up costs of coal-fired energy production,
  • collectively hastened the transition away from coal, which began almost 60 years ago.
• Margaret Thatcher’s Mine Closures (1980s): of about 20 mines, despite a year-long miners’ protest, led to blight and inter-generational poverty that some parts of the erstwhile coal-reliant regions of the U.K. continue to face.
• Urgency of Carbon Reduction: This is not to undermine the urgency with which nations must work toward drastically reducing their carbon emissions over the next two decades,
  • but to appreciate and emphasise the vastly different trajectories and plans required to reach this goal. 

Comparison with India’s Trajectory

Let us consider comparing India with the U.K.’s trajectory to achieving net zero emissions.

• At the 2021 Glasgow COP, India and China stood out seeking an amendment to the final declaration and having the phrase ‘phasing down’ and not ‘phasing out’ of coal introduced.
• India pledged to achieve net zero emissions by 2070 and meet half its energy needs from renewables by 2050. 

 

Cumulative emissions 

• India’s Carbon emissions in 2023: India is the third largest carbon emitter, behind the United States and China, emitting about 2.9 gigatons in 2023,
  • far ahead of the U.K.’s 384 million metric tonnes in the same year. But India’s population is over 20 times that of the U.K.
  • India’s per capita emissions were at 2 tonnes in 2023, less than half the global average of 4.6 tonnes and almost a third of the U.K.’s 5.5 tonnes in the same year. 
• Historical emissions analysis: An analysis by Carbon Brief that considered historical emissions of nations between 1850 and 2024 (till the closure of the Nottinghamshire plant), took into account their carbon footprint as colonial powers.
  • The U.K. at fourth place, with emissions touching 10.4 billion tonnes, which Carbon Brief said was ‘more than most countries ever produced from all sources’. 
• Britain’s Coal power history: Britain built the earliest known public coal-fired power plant in 1882 in the heart of London near Fleet Street. Coal became the mainstay in Britain, powering homes, industries and businesses for well over half a century until the mid 1960s.
•  Coal employment peaked in 1920, employing 1.2 million miners at about 3,000 mines nationwide.
• Peak coal employment and exports: About a 100 small coal-fired power plants dotted the landscape at this time, supplying power to nearby towns and industrial areas.
  • And, Britain dominated coal exports in the early 20th century accounting for 30% of global exports in 1913.
• Coal’s Decline and Shift to Alternatives: The U.K.’s peak thermal power consumption was in the 1950s and 1960s, when 90% of energy was generated by coal, before steadily shifting to natural gas, nuclear and, more recently, wind and solar. 

India’s coal story 

• First Coal mine: India’s first coal mine, the Raniganj coalfield, straddles present-day West Bengal and Jharkhand.
  • It was established in 1774 by the British East India Company, leading to large-scale coal extraction in Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Madhya Pradesh.
• First Coal-Fired power plant: India’s first coal-fired power plant was the Hussain Sagar Thermal Power Station, established in 1920 in Hyderabad under the Nizam’s rule.
  • It powered the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad until the early 1980s.
• Trombay power station (1956): In 1956, the Trombay power station near Mumbai was commissioned, marking thermal power as India’s mainstay.
• India’s Coal sector today: Moreover, the average age of India’s coal-fired power plants is about 12 years, meaning they have a few decades before they could be decommissioned.
  • While India has exported coal to neighbouring Myanmar and Sri Lanka, it has largely used its reserves for domestic power production.
  • Of late, it has even been importing coal as power demand has been steadily rising. 

 

Future peak and employment in coal sector

• Expected Peak Coal Production: India is expected to reach its peak coal production and consumption between 2030-2035, about 80 years after Britain.
• Energy Output from Coal: About 70% of India’s energy output comes from coal, with 218 GW of installed capacity.
  • India has over 350 operational mines and about 120 new ones planned.
• Employment in Coal and Thermal Power Plants: A Global Energy Monitor study estimates direct employment of 340,000 miners, likely underestimating the figure due to seasonal agricultural workers in mines.
  • A Council on Energy, Environment, and Water (CEEW) study estimates India’s thermal power plants employ about 400,000 people, with informal employment likely raising this figure.
  • The coal sector could employ well over a million people at its peak, similar to Britain over a century ago.
• Comparison with Britain : Britain’s per capita energy consumption in 2022 was almost three times India’s, despite the Russia-Ukraine war-induced energy austerity and the COVID-19 pandemic
• Coal phase out: A direct comparison between India and the U.K. on coal phase-out cannot be made, but India can learn from the U.K.’s transition over the past decade and avoid the mistakes Britain made in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

Britain’s transition 

• After committing to phasing out coal by 2025, when Britain had already reduced its use to a fifth of its energy needs,
• Holistic transition: It pursued a holistic transition of not just the workforce of the sector but also the regions and communities that depended on it.
  • Retraining programmes focused on sectors that required skills similar to those in coal mining and power generation such as engineering, heavy machinery operation and maintenance.
  • This was mixed with early retirement and redundancy payments;
  • new education and apprenticeship programmes,
  • and community and regional redevelopment of historically coal-dependent regions, or
  • impetus to set up new industries in their place.
• Regional redevelopment: New industries were set up in place of coal, with renewable energy projects, particularly offshore wind farms, sighted close to major coal-producing regions like the North Sea off Yorkshire.
  • Existing grid infrastructure was repurposed to transmit wind energy, and old coal-fired power plants were remodeled for energy generation using biomass (e.g., Drax).
• Job loss management: have helped alleviate some of the fears of job loss and economic slowdown.
  • the gradual decline in coal, with growing awareness about climate change, and transparent, fixed timelines to transition, enabled Britain’s coal phase-out.
  • Outliers remain, like the protests at the now shuttered Talbot steel plant as the Tata-owned facility attempts to shift from coking coal to electric furnaces, but this might likely be a temporary closure. 

Conclusion

While India has set itself a sufficient timeline of 45 more years to attain net zero emissions, there has already been a steady and impressive growth in renewables capacity. But coal-fired energy use also has risen, and the country must begin working on fixing timelines on plant decommissioning, regional redevelopment programmes, and retraining of miners and power plant workforces, bearing in mind that India’s historically coal-dependent regions are some of the poorest in the country, and have workers who have largely transitioned from agriculture to mining. Only a holistic, transparent, and early forward planning approach, would hasten a transition that is inclusive and just.

Editorial 2: From solidarity to pseud, India’s shift on Palestine

Context

In these times of great power politics, the legacy ideals of non-alignment and anti-colonialism are seen as baggage.

Introduction

India’s position on Palestine, once a symbol of its anti-colonial ethos, has been diluted since the end of the Cold War and has dramatically shifted over the past decade. The alignment with Israel, the marginalisation of Palestine, and a focus on transactional diplomacy are not isolated phenomena but interconnected trends shaped by an interplay of domestic and global factors. 

 

The evolution of  foreign policy 

• Influence of Hindutva: First, India’s evolving policy on Palestine is inseparable from the rise of Hindutva.
  • The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Sangh Parivar have sought to influence India’s diplomacy based on a Hindu nationalist worldview.
  • This ideological shift has manifested itself in a growing affinity with Israel, seen as a natural partner against, and apparently a victim of, the perceived threat of an ‘Islamic terror’ — a narrative deeply ingrained in the Hindutva discourse. 
• Historical support for Palestine: India’s support for Palestine was rooted in its anti-colonial struggle, self-determination, and anti-racism.
• The New India’s perspective: However, in ‘New India’, this support is seen through a communal lens, where the Palestinian cause is linked exclusively with the Muslim identity.
  • The public discourse, fuelled by right-wing media, frames pro-Palestinian protests and solidarity as a threat to national security and ‘anti-nationalism’. 
• Repression of protests: Protests supporting Palestine are often met with crackdowns, arrests, and even charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
  •  Leaders such as Asaduddin Owaisi, who publicly voice support for Palestine, are routinely vilified, while students expressing solidarity are targeted.
  • The state’s tacit approval in delegitimising the Palestinian cause helps it align with Israel, not just diplomatically but also ideologically. 
• Shift in Foreign Policy: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unscheduled stop at Mount Herzl to pay tribute to Theodore Herzl, the founder of Zionism, during his 2017 visit is emblematic of this ideological convergence.
  • Under him, foreign policy is no longer framed by its historical commitments, but by a new narrative that views Israel as a strategic ally in a shared battle against perceived threats. 

 

Values or ‘interests’? 

• Shift from Values-Based to Transactional Diplomacy: The second factor driving India’s shift is a transition from values-based to transactional diplomacy.
  • During the Nehruvian era, India’s foreign policy was deeply intertwined with anti-colonialism, including strong backing for Palestinian statehood.
  • At the end of the Cold War, that ideological foundation began to give way to a more transactional approach, where narrowly defined interests took precedence over historical commitments.
  • India-Israel relations are a product of this transition. 
• Flourishing India-Israel Relations: India’s ties with Israel have flourished recently, with bilateral trade reaching over $10 billion in 2022-23.
  • Cooperation extends across sectors such as defence, agriculture, and technology, areas where Israel has become an invaluable partner.
• New Approach to India-Israel Relations: The renewed engagement is defined by the dual pillars of ‘dehyphenation’, treating India’s relations with Israel and Palestine as separate, and ‘depoliticisation’, enhancing cooperation by circumventing politically sensitive questions.
  • To dehyphenate and depoliticise are political acts: This allows New Delhi to deepen its engagement with Israel while paying lip service to the Palestinian cause. 
• Wider global trend:  Globally, foreign policies are increasingly guided by constructed economic and strategic interests.
  •  In India’s case, the West Asia policy has evolved significantly since the 1990s, with energy security, diaspora, and investments taking centre stage.
  • The old Non-Aligned paradigm, which once governed India’s position, is now seen as inadequate for pursuing these objectives. 
• India’s approach to Palestine: As the government focuses on attracting investments from the Gulf and forging new partnerships, the Palestinian issue, lacking immediate economic or strategic benefits, has been relegated to the margins.
  • The shift is stark when contrasted with Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi’s India which saw support for Palestine as a moral duty. 

 

Ambitions and the great game 

• India’s role as a broker: India’s aspiration to emerge as a great power has also played a crucial role.
  • While it is flirting to emerge as a broker in the Ukraine conflict, it is simultaneously abdicating its support for Palestine.
  • India’s alignment with the U.S., Israel’s staunchest ally, amidst the China-U.S. contest across various theatres, including West Asia is also a contributing factor. 
• Rebranding Non-Alignment: In these times of great power politics, the legacy ideals of non-alignment and anti-colonialism are seen as baggage.
  • This is best reflected in the rhetorical shift from non-alignment to strategic autonomy to multialignment.
  • While the operational essence remains the same, every rebranding has witnessed normative dilution.
  • This is evident in India’s muted response to Israel’s war on Gaza. 
• India’s response to Gaza: Despite the extensive loss of life and destruction, New Delhi’s reaction has been limited to (non) statements calling for peace and dialogue.
  • The focus remains on strengthening ties with Israel, securing defence partnerships, and leveraging other sectoral opportunities. 
  • The rise of transactional diplomacy, and India’s strategic ambitions in the context of the China-U.S. rivalry have all contributed to the marginalisation of the Palestinian cause. 

Conclusion

While official rhetoric may still endorse a two-state solution, the reality on the ground reveals a distinct shift towards strengthening ties with Israel and prioritising economic and strategic interests over normative commitments.  In this new era of international politics, India seems to have moved away from its role as a champion of anti-colonial struggles. Instead, it has embraced a path defined by narrow interests over values. As the global landscape shifts, will India continue prioritizing power politics over its foundational principles? Currently, the emerging “new” international order appears to be the same power-driven game, merely with different players.