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India’s 500-gigawatt renewable energy dream and well as the hanging spectre of more zoonotic outbreaks will be up for discussion on the last day of the Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2025 on February 28, 2025.
The Anil Agarwal Dialogue 2025 is an annual conclave of journalists from India who write on environment and development issues. Over 80 journalists from across the country have participated this time in this one-of-its-kind platform, organised every year by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) at its facility, the Anil Agarwal Environment Training Institute, located in Nimli, Rajasthan.
Day 3 will begin with a session on India’s renewable energy scenario.
While Anumita Roychowdhury, Executive Director, CSE and Mahua Acharya, Founder, INTENT, will talk about e-mobility in the country, Binit Das, Programme Manager, Renewable Energy, CSE and Ajay Yadav, President, Renewable Energy Association of Rajasthan, will talk about the road to fulfilling India’s 500 GW dream.
As CSE and Down To Earth have noted recently, coal is still the king of energy at present. India needs to dislodge it with clean energy for an equitable green transition.
The second major session of the day will involve discussions on zoonotic outbreaks. It has been three years since the COVID-19 pandemic ended across the world, having caused untold misery and suffering.
However, as panelists Amit Khurana, Programme Director, Sustainable Food Systems, CSE; Rajesh Bhatia, former Director, Communicable Diseases, WHO-South East Asia Regional Office and Pranay Lal, Senior Advisor, Health Systems Transformation Platform (HSTP) will discuss, the threat from zoonotic diseases is hardly over.
These diseases spread from or ‘jump’ from animals to humans. The most immediate threat of a worldwide pandemic at the moment is from avian influenza. Since 2024, 68 human infections of H5N1 have been reported in the USA, of which 40 have been contracted from dairy cattle, 23 from poultry farms, and the remaining four from other animals or unknown exposures.
A recent study has found that nearly 44 per cent of the world’s population, approximately 3.5 billion people, could be exposed to zoonotic diseases.