Clean energy: India can't wish away coal - but can it be made cleaner?

The country heavily relies on coal-powered thermal plants to meet its daily energy requirements.

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But energy experts and environment campaigners are increasingly saying it should at least try to decarbonise or curtail emissions from coal-fired power plants, if it can't be phased out altogether.

"You can't wish away coal," Ashok Lavasa, a former secretary of union ministries of finance, and environment, forest and climate change, said at an event on 1 July.

"The question is, if coal is king, then can it be a benevolent king?"

This signals to the fact that, realistically speaking, coal - albeit cleaner coal - may remain the primary power source of energy in India, despite years of international climate talks asking for the highly polluting fossil fuel to be phased out entirely.