India pledges net-zero emissions by 2070 — but also wants to expand coal mining
MUMBAI — At a coal depot tucked away in an urban slum, Abdul Moeed Chaudhary surveys his workers. Wiry men wearing flip-flops shovel heaps of coal into mounds that reach the rafters several stories high. Clouds of black dust billow up. Nobody is wearing a mask.
Chaudhary, 30, is the third generation in his family to manage this wholesale coal depot. It's one small stop in a long coal supply chain that crisscrosses the Indian subcontinent. He buys from agents sourcing coal from mines mostly in the country's east, and sells to factories, metal workshops and hotel chains in India's megacity, Mumbai.
His clients use coal to fuel their furnaces. Coal also fuels India's power grid: 70% of the country's electricity comes from it.
But Chaudhury recently did something none of his ancestors in the business ever dreamed of: He went away to college and earned a master's degree in renewable energy.
"There are two things: One is to sustain your life, but at the same time, you have to make efforts to change, for the future," he tells NPR on a tour of his facility.
So Chaudhary, while still working in
