Varad Pande on India's Climate Finance and Technology Strategy

Interpreting India

Climate finance and technology is one of India’s priorities as part of its ongoing G20 presidency. Financing the climate transition of developing countries and the Global South is a complex but critical issue, as is the development, transfer, and sharing of critical climate technologies. What should India’s climate finance and technology strategy be? What role will the various pools of capital—private, public, philanthropic, impact, and multilateral development banks—play in mobilizing the necessary climate financial support for this transition? Will the new World Bank president, Ajay Banga, succeed in leveraging private capital for climate and ultimately make the Bank fit for purpose for the coming decades? Which areas of climate technology should India prioritize? Will India’s EV, solar, green hydrogen, and biofuels push suffice to position it as a climate leader? What lessons can India learn from the journeys, strategies, and priorities of other countries?

In this episode of Interpreting India, Varad Pande joins Anirudh Suri to discuss these key issues around India's climate finance and technology strategy.

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Episode Contributors

Varad Pande is a partner at BCG. Formerly, he was a partner with Omidyar Network India.

Anirudh Suri is a nonresident scholar with Carnegie India. His interests lie at the intersection of technology and geopolitics, climate, and strategic affairs.

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Additional Reading

A Comprehensive Framework for India’s Climate Finance Strategy by Anirudh Suri

The Case for a Comprehensive Indian Climate Bill by Anirudh Suri

Why Banga Being a Corporate Czar is Good for World Bank: Activists Are Wrong Because ex-Mastercard Boss Can Mobilise Climate Finance by Tapping Private Sector Capital by Anirudh Suri

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Key Moments

(00:00); Introduction

(02:03); Varad's diving experience in the Andaman Islands and India's ocean ecosystem

(05:45); The Indian Ocean Initiative at Carnegie India

(06:27); Anirudh speaks on his observations on climate change

(07:45); Going from net zero to nature positive

(10:11); Change in climate finance trends

(12:17); Varad explains why climate finance is such a tricky problem to solve

(18:31); Making India more lucrative to global climate finance capital

(28:34); Varad on the role of private and public finance in climate change

(30:45); Leveraging the newly elected council of the World Bank for climate finance needs

(36:55); India's climate tech strategy—EVs and green hydrogen

(45:40); Anirudh on the consumption aspect of climate technology strategies

(47:13); What can India learn from the climate transition journeys of other countries?

(54:34); Outro

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