Chasing Tales

The path to a just transition – II

In this part of the series of posts on a just energy transition, I’ll explore what an energy transition is, and why we must achieve it.

Energy transition is simply the switch our current dependence on fossil fuels to renewable or low carbon sources for energy production. This is essential because climate change is being fueled by our dependence on mineral fuels- the use of which release greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.

Greenhouse gases are gases that trap the Sun’s heat in our atmosphere, leading to a long term warming of our planet, causing local and global weather changes that living beings on the planet did not evolve with, and also causing abiotic planetary forces to react in ways that harm life and infrastructure- for example, warmer oceans lead to more hurricanes, causing greater property damage and loss of human, animal, and plant lives.

Since these gases collect in the atmosphere, there is a build up of heat absorbing chemicals in the air over time. Carbon Dioxide in particular persists in the atmosphere fore thousands of years, which means that the CO₂ released into the atmosphere by, for example, burning coal to fire steam engines during the industrial revolution, is still blanketing us today. Other gases issued due to the combustion of fossils have shorter lifespans, but greater warming effects due to the structure of their molecules- although methane (CH₄) on average lasts in the atmosphere for less than 12 years, it’s 100 year warming potential can be between 28 to 36 times as potent as CO₂, for example¹.

Just like if the planet were to cool (and continue cooling) overmuch, a planet that is heating up is catastrophic to life and property.

In comparison, non fossil sources of energy are considered clean fuels, since they do not liberate the greenhouse gas genie into our atmosphere while operating to produce energy. Please do note that while they contribute negligible amounts to global warming while making electricity, they do contribute to it through their supply chains- that is, scope 2 and 3 emissions.

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) reviewed nearly 3,000 published life cycle assessment studies on utility-scale electricity generation
from wind, solar photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, biopower, geothermal, ocean energy, hydropower, nuclear, natural gas, and coal technologies, as well as lithium-ion battery, pumped storage hydropower, and hydrogen storage technologies, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from various sources of energy to inform policy, planning, and investment decisions. Less than 15% of the studies passed the various quality and relevance checks. On studying the ones that did pass these checks, NREL came to the conclusion that the Median Published Life Cycle Emissions Factors for Electricity Generation Technologies was as follows²:

S. No.	Type of Technology	Generation Technology	Median Published Life Cycle Emissions Factors
1.	Renewable	Biomass	52
2.	Renewable	Photovoltaic^a	43
3.	Renewable	Concentrating Solar Power^b	28
4.	Renewable	Geothermal	37
5.	Renewable	Hydropower	21
6.	Renewable	Ocean	8
7.	Renewable	Wind^c	13
8.	Storage	Pumped Storage Hydropower	7.4
9.	Storage	Lithium-ion Battery	33
10.	Storage	Hydrogen Fuel Cell	38
11.	Non Renewable	Nuclear^d	13
12.	Non Renewable	Natural Gas	486
13.	Non Renewable	Oil	840
14.	Non Renewable	Coal	1001

Median Published Life Cycle Emissions Factors for Electricity Generation Technologies
a Thin film and crystalline silicon; b Tower and trough; c Land-based and offshore; d Light-water reactor (including pressurized water and boiling water) only

As can be seen in the table above, the median Emission Factor (Emission Factors are a way to understand how much GHG emissions were released due to a particular activity) for the total lifecycle Non Renewables are far greater than those of either storage or renewable technologies. These emissions are primarily released during the combustion phase for the Non Renewables, however non of the other technologies require combustion to create electricity (and neither does Nuclear Light-Water Reactor technology, resulting in the very low Median Lifecycle EF).

Global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions grew by 51% from 1990 to 2021, and more than 75% of these emissions come from the energy sector.³ Thus it’s obvious that by switching over to sources of energy that are not carbon intensive, we will be able to target the most conspicuous source of planet warming emissions. Shifting out of non renewable sources of energy will also reduce our dependence on fossils, and diversify our energy mix and enhance global energy security (in 2022 fossil fuels provided 81% of the total energy supply globally⁴), improve global health outcomes by reducing pollution, and finally- also improve the climate outlook.

Sources

The path to a just transition – I

It is known even now the world will go through extreme climate events that cannot be avoided. Such events, caused by human activities indirectly trapping heat in our planet’s atmosphere which has already resulted in an increase of nearly 2 degrees Fahrenheit (1.1 degrees Celsius) between 1850-1900¹, are likely to include more wildfires, more floods, more hurricanes, more droughts, more heatwaves, different precipitation patterns,² seasonal changes that happen at different times than a century, or even just a couple of decades ago among other negative outcomes. Weather events are also expected to be more intense than earlier ones- that is, there will be more incidence of hotter heatwaves, hurricanes on the higher side of the scale, more intense precipitation, etc.

While many of these adverse impacts cannot be avoided any longer, we can prevent an exacerbation of these outcomes by shifting to a lower carbon economic system than what we have now. This shift from carbon intensive economic activities to an economy that is either carbon neutral (net zero) or negative is referred to as climate transition.

Our global economy is heavily reliant on mineral fuels- currently two-thirds of our fuel demand is met through fossil fuels³. In the Global Energy Review 2025, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has stated that the carbon intensity of global economic activity is the product of the energy intensity of GDP and the carbon intensity of total energy supply.⁴ That is, we first find out how much energy it takes to produce the entire world’s Gross Domestic Product, and then multiply it with the amount of carbon produced to make that much energy. This means we can slow down carbon emissions in two ways- reduce our production and consumption activities, or make sure it takes less energy to keep them at the same level they are today.

In 2019, heat and electricity production cost us 34% of the global greenhouse gas production, industry accounted for 24%, transportation 15%, and buildings 6% of the global greenhouse gas emissions in that year. It may be noted that 95% of the transportation sector runs on fossil fuels.⁵ And, in 2024, the CO₂ intensity per unit of economic activity was lower than the average improvement seen over the previous decade.⁴ So not only are we using a lot of energy to support our lifestyles, we are also failing to decrease the amount of greenhouse gases that are released into the atmosphere due to these activities.

It is clear that the change to a lower carbon economy is emergent, must be large scale, and involve every sector and industry in the global economy, including the labour markets, and therefore the communities those workers belong to. It’s a systemic shift that will affect all living beings on our planet, and cause significant human distress unless it is planned and executed with careful compassion.

“The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future,”

– IPCC Working Group II Co-Chair, Hans-Otto Pörtner³

Given the above, energy transition is a formidable task ahead of our species. A just transition, which distributes an equitable burden for the resources required to finance the transition among those who are wealthy and those who are not, is going to be even more challenging.

Accelerating climate actions and progress towards a just transition is essential to reducing climate risks and addressing sustainable development priorities, including water, food and human security.

-IPCC Sixth Assessment Report Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change⁷

The consequences of climate change affect people disproportionately- the impoverished suffer much more than those who have the resources to avoid the results of the adverse fallout of climate change. Climate change energy transitions are also going to have widespread consequences. A “just” climate transition is one where the economic burden of the transition falls on people in the proportion in which they contributed to climate change- this means that the wealthy with extravagant lifestyles bear more responsibility, and cost, for the shift to a carbon neutral or negative economy than workers who are living within a system they did not create. This also means countries which industrialised in the 1800s must answer for the greenhouse gases they pumped into the atmosphere to achieve their prosperity, and that most corporations bear greater responsibilities than most individuals.

In this series of posts, I’ll explore what the energy transition will require, how we may go about achieving it, and what we must do for the transition to be just.

Sources

A note on industrial decarbonisation

Industrial decarbonisation refers to the transition of the industrial sector from the use of fossil fuels to less carbon intensive sources of fuel, as well as for their processes to release fewer greenhouse gases into our atmosphere. This will help minimise the impact of the industrial sector on our planet and reduce negative externalities. An externality is a positive or negative consequence of an action that affects someone without affecting the person who did the original action. In this case, pollution caused by industries negatively impacts planetary warming, health outcomes, biodiversity, etc. causing poor outcomes and imposing costs on people and other living beings. Externalities are not reflected in costs to the entity that executed the original act, but either benefit or impose costs on bystanders.

Industries emitted 4.1 GtCO2-eq or 24% of global emissions in 2019. This figure does not take emissions from their use of power and heat, which raises the figure to 20 GtCO2-eq or 34%. However, direct fuel use emissions from industrial activities were found to have decreased to 7 GtCO2-eq, 50% of direct industrial emissions (of the 4.1 GtCO2-eq) in 2019.¹

The authors of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th assessment report had high confidence that “Net zero CO2 emissions from the industrial sector are possible but challenging”, and stated that while energy efficiency will continue to be important, switching production to less energy intensive processes is vital. The report further states that industrial emissions have been growing faster since 2000 than emissions in any other sector, driven by increased basic materials (raw material, such as those extracted through mining or forestry, etc. used in the industrial sector) extraction and production¹

Innovation and accounting are the backbones of decarbonisation, and any sustainability strategy, here are some available to those wish to pursue decarbonisation:

i. Energy efficiency – Reducing energy consumption reduces emissions, and happily, reduces production costs.

ii. Using low carbon energy sources – Using clean energy sources for all or part of the production process, such as equipment powered by electricity rather than traditional fuels (think gas burners vs. induction stove tops- the latter removes fossil fuel from the equation, except for what is used at source to produce the electricity).

iii. Greater supply chain accountability – While addressing Scope 3 emissions are egregiously challenging, organisations taking care of their S1 and S2 emissions while working with their supply chain partners to address their S1 and S2 emissions will help minimise S3 for the entire chain.

iv. Targeting Scope 4 – Any industrial decarbonisation strategy must embrace innovating to increase S4 emissions, which are emissions avoided that would otherwise have been made if the current prevalent technology, was used. For example, if a motion triggered lighting system in hospital corridors is more energy efficient than one which is left switched on the entire time. The emissions avoided due to the development and use of motion sensing lights are an example of S4 emissions. Work from home, or using video conferencing technology instead of working daily from office, or traveling for meetings are other contemporary examples.

v. Reducing energy losses – According to the USEIA, more than 60% energy is lost to conversion.³ When fuel is burnt for producing heat, which is then used indirectly to produce electricity- for example, burning coal (level 1 – stored chemical energy to thermal energy) to heat water to produce steam (level 2 – thermal energy used to change the state of water from liquid to gas) to power turbines (level 3 – thermal energy to mechanical energy) to run a generator rotor to produce electricity (level 4 – Mechanical energy to electricity) – energy is lost to various inefficiencies such as incomplete chemical conversion of the raw material to heat, friction, heat loss, transition losses, electrical losses, and so on. These losses are significantly reduced when renewable energy is used to power turbines, but grid dependent industries will receive their electricity after transmission and distribution (T&D) losses.

Industries can help address this by using better captive technologies such as Trigeneration, also known as Combined Heating Cooling and power (CHPC), which uses natural gas as a fuel source (I know) to produce electricity, and uses the waste heat to produce heating (say for heating buildings or for process heating) and refrigeration (through vapor absorption refrigeration systems) as required. Of course, this way the organisation will have greater control over its power source, and low grid-dependence- and no T&D losses.

v. Using artificial intelligence – artificial intelligence can identify redundancies in our systems, and find where and how we can reduce emissions through our industrial supply chains. Whether the suggestions are usable or not is for humans to decide once the computers have done their work.

Lastly, I’ve seen a lot of content advocating for Carbon Capture and related technologies/ processes, but I don’t quite understand them yet, and I do think abatement is better than storage. Also trees already do capture and use carbon, and perhaps we can just increase the global natural forest coverage.

I’d love to go into industry specific strategies in further posts, so stay tuned for those posts.

Sources:

1. IPCC AR6 Chapter 11

2. World Bank data on global T&D losses, 2014

3. More than 60% of energy used for electricity generation is lost in conversion

Understanding Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS)

I’ve worked on four appliance MEPS projects (colloquially also known as ‘Energy Star Rating’), one of which was approved for implementation by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE).

MEPS are a comparative rating system through which appliances are rated on their energy consumption. It’s called Minimum Energy Performance Standard because anything that is rated below 1 star is not allowed to be sold in the India any longer. Each star symbolises a bin, or interval scale, indicating energy consumed by appliances. The most efficient appliances find themselves in the highest bin, and the least are in the lowest.

The first stem while creating an MEPS is to choose the appliance. If the appliance is not widely used, or generally does not consume too much energy, the impact on national energy consumption statistics will be limited (think bread toasters). The next step is to understand the market itself. A thorough market survey of the products in the market for a particular appliance- for example, if the appliance is an air conditioner, what are the kinds of air conditioners being used? Air conditioners are primarily sold to households, so the the right people to collect data from for this appliance are the companies that make and sell them. If the appliance is used primarily by commercial entities, such as a Visicooler, a comprehensive primary research of the brands, models, usage hours, product lifecycle, whether it has any inbuilt energy saving mechanisms (such as automatic sleep mode), and other relevant data points is the way to go forth. Also, BEE does not care about any feature of the product that does not relate to energy consumption- so if your refrigerator deoderises its insides, or your fan can play music- these extras are not relevant to the star rating process (but they will consume more energy than the same product without them). A systematic literature review of other jurisdictions who have regulated the energy consumption of the product is beneficial at this stage- it makes sure we don’t miss anything important, and also allows us to learn from their work.

Once the data is available and sorted, we can find the range for each level of capacity for all the products- for example, a 36 inch television will have a lower range of minimum and maximum rated energy consumption (as provided by the brand) when compared with a 52 inch television of the same type- Since the greater the resolution of a television, the more energy it will consume, on average. This is why the same scale cannot be applied to all devices of a particular type of appliance.

Electrical appliances have outputs, and for producing the output they use electricity. For example refrigerators (of any sort) deliver cooling per unit time, and use electricity as fuel to do that. To find out how much energy a device consumes, we divide the electricity used by the time the device was used for. Nota bene, not every appliance is run 24 hours a day, 365 days a year- but some certainly are- a refrigerator will usually run the entire 24 hours, daily, but a an air conditioner is a seasonal product and will be used only in summers. Consequently, to estimate the energy consumed by the average device of a particular type of appliance, we will also have to estimate the number of hours they will be used. A year has (24 hours a day x 365 days a year) 8,760 hours. If we assume that the appliance we are regulating is used for 5 hours a day daily on average in all households, then it is on average used for 1,825 hours every year. So the formula for finding out the average energy consumed by a particular type of device, say, an LED television of 40 inches by Brand A is:

Average annual electricity consumed = electricity consumed through the year/ time used through the year

We find this number out for each device in the market. How would we get the information? Well for an organised market, the manufacturers usually have an idea (whether they advertise it or not, or whether that product is regulated or not). To understand the kind of products I mean here, think of walking into a snazzy consumer durables store- most products there (laptops, geysers, most types of space conditioners, etc.) are too sophisticated to be manufactured by back alley producers. On the other hand, products like water coolers or desert coolers are easier to put together, and finding enough small manufactures is a skirmish with listings on websites like India Mart. Finding enough manufacturers is vital to understand the size of the market, the types of devices being sold, the energy they consume, etc. Since in such cases small manufacturers are unlikely to know the annual energy consumption of the units they sell, a test at an NABL certified laboratory for the same is part of the picture.

Once all this information is received and processed, the next step is to estimate the growth of that product’s market in the next ten years, and make the star rating table. The table will naturally disqualify some devices from being sold, since anything under 1 star will not be allowed in the market any longer – which is another reason it’s important to have an inclusive table of manufacturers rather than just the large corporations: it affects livelihoods. Further, the government may find ways to offer such small businesses compliance aid, or decide to make the rating discretionary for a few years. The rating scale selected is usually one where most devices in the market fall within 2 stars and 4 stars. Over time, usually every 1 – 1.5 years, the scale is shifted so that what was once a 5 star becomes a 4 or 3 star, and the baseline energy efficiency in the market increases (since what was once a 2 or 3 star product is now rated 1 star, anything less energy efficient will be retired from the market).

Once the scale is selected, we can multiply the current sales data for each device with the projected sales data for the next 10 years and the average energy consumed for each star rating bin (accounting for upward shifts in the rating scale), and we will have an estimate of the energy saved by the implementation of this policy for the time period.

I hope this blog post inspires you to always purchase a 5 star energy rated product, since a lot of thought, effort, and money goes into making sure your devices consume as little electricity as possible.

Measuring greatness in sport

Humans like to measure things, and we like to be right… we insist on both nearly all the time, in fact. We often also like sport. Yet, in the sports I follow, there is no one player who can unequivocally be named the Greatest of All Time (GOAT).

The GOAT debate is always engaging, since it paints more of a picture of the person or persons making their case, rather than the athlete or team they are advocating for.

To my mind, there’s no real way to find one athlete who is better than all others, because no athlete ever has the same journey. Why is this important? Because a girl playing sport will always have more barriers to performance than a boy of the same age, socioeconomic status, and innate talent. Kids starting off playing the same sport will have very different paths by being born in different countries- and I’m not even speaking of the differences between developed and not so developed nations – think of the difference in coaching availability for a young tennis player in Spain to one in, say, New Zealand.

Let’s talk about what makes an athlete good.

i. Win-loss % – The most important standard to determine whether an athlete is good or not. Clearly, athletes who play team sports have a disadvantage, and their personal records will determine whether they have contributed to the team’s cause through their career or not.

ii. Inherent Talent – How fast a person can run, how their body works, how they process the knowledge about sport and apply it through the filter of their own personality are all usually inbuilt, and very individual to any person.

iii. Coachability – Are they open to learning new skills?

So aside from exceptional results in the criteria discussed above, what makes me think of a player as a great, or even a GOAT aspirant? Here’s my (nominal) list:

● Biomechanics – How an athlete moves is imprinted in peoples minds. All athletes in a sport learn the same movements, but how those movements interact with any of their

● Motivation – The best of the best are self motivated, and much more so than the regular person. They constantly wish to improve, and they work to do it.

● Ambition – The more ambitious an athlete is, the higher up they climb.

● Focus – They have their eyes on the prize and nothing can distract them from it.

● Sportspersonship – They’re not nasty. They care enough about their sport that they understand their opponent’s effort. Also, they enjoy their opponents’ successes, at least purely from a love-of-their-sport point of view, even if it encumbers them with additional scoreboard pressure.

● Transcendence – Athletes who transcend their team, their sport, their nationality. They have fans across all lines.

● Provocating other fandoms – If you know, you know. Athletes have reached the pinnacle of their sport infuriate fans of other GOAT contenders in the same sport, especially if they play in overlapping timelines.

● Popularity – They bring new fans and new players to their sport.

● They transform their sport – they change how their sport is played. The way they approach the sport and play it is so transformative, their colleagues change how they play and coaches and think tanks have to alter their baselines and expectations from other players.

While all spoortspersons are (correctly) judged on results, there are some who get better results. My second list are the qualities that propel good athletes to great ones.

Ecosystem services- how humans utilise unpriced planetary resources

Ecosystem services are all the benefits humans derive from nature. Whether directly or indirectly, human societies derive all their economic and non economic resources from nature, but that is not all we can attribute to it.

Ecosystems are formed when organisms interact with the physical space they occupy on the planet. It consists of biotic and abiotic components (biotic: anything that is or was once alive, abiotic: was never alive), and deliver various functions, such as:

i. Providing energy – Animals cannot convert our Sun’s heat and light to nutrients. When plants do that, and are consumed by herbivores, who are then consumed by other animals, they enable animal life and activity on earth. It is the ancient Sun’s bounty we use when we consume fossil fuels, for they are nothing but dead and buried plants and animals of several ages.

ii. Providing habitat – Life usually has a type of space it prefers to live in: a certain temperature range, an amount of humidity it can tolerate, the land it grows in, where its prey lives. These preferences are evolved over millennia and organisms that belong to a certain area have a distinct evolutionary advantage in that type of region.

iv. Providing planetary cycle regulation – Ecosystems and their interactions regulate all the biogeochemical cycles of our planet. Whether directly or indirectly, they produce most of the resources present in nature. Examples include fresh water, oxygen, seeds, and biomass decomposition which leads to richer soils and removal of dead creatures.

v. Providing commercial raw material – nearly every molecule on our planet comes either directly or indirectly through the ecosystem production factory. Even synthetic molecules are completely or in part sourced through this production cycle. Think of anything you own, anything you use, anything you want to possess- it was created by the planetary ecosystem in one way or another. Even synthetic molecules require humans to formulate them.

vi. Providing rehabilitation services – Humans use nature for exposure to beauty, companionship, relaxation, spiritual experiences, and cognitive enrichment. Nearly none of the revenue generated by industries based on the participation in these activities is reinvested in preserving or enhancing the ecosystems that support them.

Our empire of commerce and poverty is rooted in the soil we stand on, and everything that made it.

Is it possible to price these activities? Of course. The easiest ways are to simply add up what can be traced to nature in our global GDP… which is everything (Since we have not yet started mining extraterrestrial worlds, so at the moment nature simply means our own home). However, what about pricing the services that save us from spending money? When a bee pollinates a flower so we don’t use human hands to do it, or when a bird eats an insect that would otherwise eat our crop, so we don’t require insecticides, how do we count that? One way to do that is to simply destroy all ecosystems, and see how everything is priced with only humans and human food alive. A less dystopian way is perhaps to understand the services provided by the ecosystems as thoroughly as we can, and invest in them so that they become both, healthy and self sustaining, and replace the parts of our economy that are dedicated to being nature-substitutes, as well as enhances it (and we can later compare how much we are saving).

It’s important to understand that not all nature based solutions are harmless to nature itself. Of course fossil fuels are the greatest examples- because yes those are as natural as they come, but even more direct sources of energy, such as using solar energy requires the use of mining for rare earth metals; Hydroelectricity can devastate large land areas and damage life in the fresh water source used for it; Restoring apex predator population (as much as we are able) will inevitably lead to conflicts between those predators and the local human population. Even so, on balance, the scale is very much tipped to one side in favour of choosing solutions that restore ecosystems.

So how do we build our solar punk paradise? Here are some suggestions:

i. Education – Early and continuous instruction in what ecosystems are, the local ecosystems, their safeguarding, and their sustainable uses will help society as a whole understand how to live as part of ecosystems, and use them for human benefit (monetary and otherwise) without depleting them.

ii. Investment in Ecosystems – Large swathes of the planet have been left in desolation due to human economic activities. These devastated lands are in need of restoration, and investment in such restoration will help nearby areas by resulting in more predictable weather, and a nicer place to live, among other rewards.

iii. Payment for ecosystem guardianship – There is absolutely no reason communities who traditionally maintain ecosystems as part of their culture should do that work for free. First, it must be recognised as work, and next, it must be valued fairly and paid so that they are compensated for their efforts, and are also able to continue their cultural planet nurturing practices rather than joining the conventional economy.

iv. Creating safe zones – Humans are everywhere. Creating ecological hotspots without human settlements will help many species of flora and fauna thrive. Such areas can be sustained through tourism.

v. Policy interventions – Coordinated government action at the local, national and multinational levels which may include policies, regulation, taxation, market controls, or other intercessions in partnership with local and regional bodies at every level to drive change forward and bring people together.

Financing climate solutions – I

Climate oriented finance is often a nebulous, not-quite-defined cloud of international funds, bilateral and multilateral agreements, public and private initiatives. It’s an ever changing landscape, and several trillions of United States Dollars are required as of date to truly combat the ever escalating events ^{1, 2, 3} so there is no one way to pinpoint its exact components, but here is a first primer on climate finance.

Money used to help adjust to the effects of climate change (adaptation finance), reduce the future burden attributable to climate change (mitigation finance), and/ or help change our current ways of working that contribute to the perpetuation of climate change towards a low (or lower) carbon intensive economy (transition finance) is classified roughly as climate finance. Additionally, money used for capacity building or educating people about climate change and how we can adjust to or tackle the situation in the shorter and longer terms is also part of the money bag.

There are various mechanisms used to activate financing for climate change related projects, such as:

i. Multilateral Funding – money provided by a group of countries for a project.

ii. Bilateral Investments – Funds invested by one country into projects in another country.

iii. Global or Regional Climate Funds – These funds may operate at any geographical level. Some global examples are the Global Environment Facility (GEF), and the Adaptation Fund.

iv. Blended Finance – using more than one source of funds in a way that different funding agencies take up different different risks depending on their own risk appetite, as well as different rates of returns. For example, a government agency may not require any rate of return on a project, but a private entity is likely to have a base requirement. These bodies will also have different capacity for risk. using a combination of such sources will allow for projects that may otherwise be difficult to fund. These sources of funds may be sovereign funds, private grants, loans, scholarships, crowd sourced, etc.

These funding sources use a variety of instruments to distribute money among various deserving projects. Financial instruments are a monetary contract that promise to transfer value from the giver to the receiver. A bank note is an example of a financial instrument. These instruments may be:

i. Debt, such as climate bonds or loans.

ii. Equity, such as investing in companies that work directly on climate solutions (for example, a company that researched how to produce electricity from non fossil fuel sources).

iii. Climate projects may also be financed through what I think of as ‘Indirect Financing’ or ‘Risk Financing’, such as providing guarantees for the funding of higher risk projects, in which case the guarantor is not providing the money to run the project directly, but instead assuring the financier that if they do not meet the required return, the guarantor will meet the deficit.

iv. Climate Derivatives are a type of instrument in which a party takes on the weather related risk associated with a particular event or project, and depending on the outcome, they may keep the premium paid to them to cover the risk, or they will have to pay for the weather damages.

As mentioned previously, climate related finance is a complex subject, and while this is a pithy overview of the basics, in the next articles in this series I’ll take up these topics in greater detail.

How to build an energy efficient building

I worked for 5 years in an architectural firm working in the energy efficiency/ sustainability space. Here are some things I learnt while working there about making buildings that are comfortable to live in, and have reduced energy consumption in comparison to buildings that do not incorporate such measures.

There are two types of building energy efficiency strategies- active and passive. Active strategies are those used to make buildings more comfortable or reduce energy bills after the construction is finished- for example, using air conditioning to make an office cooler, or installing solar panels to reduce energy consumption. Passive strategies are those that are incorporated into the design and construction of your structure.

I’ll write about passive strategies.

Constructions made with passive design strategies are automatically more comfortable to live in, since they are planned to be climate responsive to the area in which they are situated. For example, a house built in cold climate will be snug if it is well insulated, thus keeping the house warm. At the same time, a well insulated house in an area with hot weather will also do well with insulation, so that external temperatures do not make the living spaces warm.

Airflow

Designing openings in buildings such as fenestration, or doorways that allow air flow into and out of the room at body height helps removing carbon dioxide and harmful chemicals released by the various paraphernalia kept inside the building as well as wall paints, tiles, etc., body odors, other smells, and make the room cooler. Try to place the openings so that air circulates around the room before it exits. This can be done by not placing openings exactly opposite each other so that air does not come in and leave in a straight line, or placing them too close together so that air does not exit before circulating the room.

Light

Design your structure so that you need as little artificial light as possible, while also minimising the loss of internal temperature.

In cold areas, sunlight is at a premium, and large glass façades allow light inside the house. Glass also facilitates a greenhouse effect, which will also help capture any warmth into the construction.

In hot climates, make sure you get indirect sunlight into the house by bouncing direct sunlight into the building, rather than having a large glass section in the building envelope that allows direct daylight in, thereby heating the space (thus requiring artificial space cooling), and dazzling people’s eyes (thus requiring window drapery to block the light, and artificial lights to illuminate the space).

Overhangs are horizontal shades above the opening, and fins that may be vertical or horizontal will help with shade. Using extensions under windows that receive direct sunlight, which then bounces off them and into the room, allows indirect sunlight to illuminate the interior. Such construction design can be used in combination to help protect your building interiors from direct sunlight, while also reducing the use of artificial lighting during daytime.

Orientation

In the northern hemisphere, buildings that have windows or living spaces in the East or West directions will be uncomfortably hot in warmer climes, either seasonally or through the year- especially those in the West, as that region will have the hot afternoon Sun. North facing windows allow glare free light into the structure, while south facing windows also allow heat into the structures, great for geographies that are usually cooler.

In the southern hemisphere, our Sun occupies the northern sky more than the southern sky, therefore fenestration facing the south will allow for a cooler house, and therefore be better for warmer climates.

Building Envelope

The building envelope is the entire wrapping around any building- just like a pig’s skin keeps the pig together, the building’s envelope defines where the building is, and includes the outside walls, windows, doors, and the roof.

Make your building so that it keeps the insides of the building inside as much as possible- that is, use material that will last the test of time as well as any disastrous events (natural or otherwise) as well as release as few harmful fumes as possible, use good quality weather proofing such as insulation so that the temperatures on the inside are comfortable through the year (especially in regions with large differences between indoor and outdoor temperatures), water proofing that protects the building from dampness and mold, build in slants into the roof to help remove precipitation from it, and in hot zones, use cool roof techniques.

Neighbourhood

If your structure is short, surrounded by tall buildings, it will be naturally shaded. In case it is the opposite, you’ll benefit from Sunlight. Given the average climate in your geography, either can be great, or not so great.

The number of trees in the neighbourhood will also help cool the area, as well as slow down the wind (both, the hot summer winds and the cold winter ones).

If you’re situated downhill and in a heavy rainfall area, your basement and ground levels may flood easily.

Researching all the above points before you invest in your structure, either by building one or buying an already built construction will help you make the right decisions.

How would you measure fielding performance in cricket?

Cricket is a statistically oriented sport. Cricket fans are used to scrolling pages of statistics for their teams and players they wish to know more about. And yet, we don’t have reliable metrics for measuring and comparing fielding performances.

Fans know, of course, when we see a cohesive fielding performance, such as New Zealand’s against Pakistan during the inaugural Champions Trophy match in Karachi on Wednesday, 19 February 2025. We also know a sloppy one, such as India’s against Bangladesh the next day in Dubai. Greatness is always visible in the doing on a cricket field.

We fantasise about taking that perfect flying catch, or executing a a sharp run out when we play, but we still do not have a universally accepted set of metrics to really understand what a “perfect” catch is, or what makes a run out “sharp”. For a sport that’s managed to tame the nebulous Leg before Wicket dismissal into four measurable criteria (including the umpire’s decision), it sure is confusing why fielding continues to confound us so. Especially when cricket fans value it so.

I’ve wondered what it would take to build parametres that measured fielding performance, and asked different cricket writers about how they would go about it too. At the moment I think such a measurement must include the following:

1. Define the deconstructed components of fielding

What are the parts that make the whole for fielding in cricket? I think we can break them down to getting in position, including speed and ball awareness; catching; throwing, with throwing itself divided into speed and accuracy; and field awareness.

2. Decide how we value different types of catching

Is slip catching the same as catching at point? Are they equivalent to a boundary catch? What about wicket keeping catches, with those padded cymbals for hands? And what happens when fields tag team a catch?

3. Scoring

Each fielder may be rated on the above, that is, scores for emplacement, for catching, and for throwing. Additionally, points can be deducted for errors and added for faultless execution, gymnastics-style.

Now for expanding upon the four criteria I mentioned in the first point above.

1. Emplacement- How a fielder gets into position.

a. Ball Awareness

A lack of ball awareness is most often evidenced in whether or not fielders are backing throws up. Overthrows are annoying, and often damaging. Dropped catches are also often about active attention, since players who expect the ball to come to them are also ready to field it, and ball awareness will allow us to gauge how attentive a player usually is.

b. Speed

Cricket already measures the amount of time a fielder had to react to an incoming catch, and we can certainly measure the distance the fielder is standing from the batter. Therefore, as middle school maths taught us, Speed = Distance/ Time. This will capture a fielder’s fitness and running ability, as well as their reaction time.

2. Catching- Self explanatory

Off the top of my head, I can count eight types of catches

i. Tag-Teamed Catches- When two or more fielders are involved in completing the same catch. Here players must be especially aware of each other and cognizant of throwing the ball before they drop it, or braced to catch one coming at an odd angle from the first catcher. I believe points should be assigned to all the involved fielders.

ii. Boundary Catches- Catches pouched so close to the boundary that the fielder must be aware of the ropes/ cushions.

iii. Outfield Catches- Catches outside the 30 yard circle, but before the ball reaches the boundary fielders. It may involve either infielders or boundary fielders running to the catch.

iv. Infield Catches- Catches at or within the 30 yard circle that do not include the ones detailed below.

v. Slip Catches- You know the ones.

vi. Keeper Catches- This is interesting because keepers have such a unique job. Of course they have the advantage of padding, but they often have to catch blind, and when diving can easily end up in front of first slip. They also must actively read the ball while it is being delivered, just like the batter.

vii. Close Catches- Any variation on Silly Point, Silly Mid Off, Silly Mid On, and Forward Short Leg.

viii. Caught and Bowled- When the bowler catches the ball during or soon after their follow through.

3. Throwing- collecting and getting the ball back to the pitch.

Throw Speed- easily measured.

Throw Accuracy- also easily measured.

4. Field Awareness

Poor calling is exasperating to watch and dangerous for the fielders themselves, and fielders need to be aware of which end of the pitch they should throw to.

So how will the scoring happen?

One way to do it is simply begin each match at zero for each fielder, and add points as they field, or misfield, as the numerator, and the number of opportunity they had to field as the denominator. Each act of fielding can have a predetermined value, and at the end of the match, I propose we bring all the scores down to a scale of 10.

A decision must be taken about whether each day in test cricket is rated separately, or whether performances are rated by innings, since both bring forth interesting insights into how different fielders manage sessions, innings, and days. A fifth continuous session of fielding is sure to differ from the first session in both execution, strategy, and energy.

This kind of a rating scale will take into account how often a fielder comes into play, and will account for how good they already are, given that they are likely to be placed according to their previously demonstrated abilities.

Of course, this will add to all the counting and mathematics we already do as cricket tragics, but as matches add up, we’ll have new stats to pour ourselves into and write articles about. I count that as a win.

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