Action points for India from the latest IPCC report

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Editor's note: On Monday, the United Nations’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, better known as IPCC, issued its third and final report on the state of climate change and its impact. This report comes a month after its second report on the ongoing effects of climate change and humanity’s attempts to adapt to them. The two reports cover different subjects, but their tone and urgency is the same: we have a final chance to act, or else we’re staring at a bleak near- and long-term future. Just consider the events that have unfolded in India in the period between the two reports. In March, large parts of the country witnessed an unprecedented heat wave. Temperatures rose to unheard-of levels, like hitting 40 degrees Celsius in Mumbai. Many Indian states ran out of electricity to feed the sudden rise in power demand, apparently due to a shortage in coal supply. Electricity distribution companies went to power exchanges to buy electricity, where prices shot through the roof and prompted the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission to cap spot power prices. The need for coal-based power …