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India’s Energy Conundrum
Systems Thinking for Examining Sustainable Futures
Speakers
Energy use is recognised as a path to development. With the climate crisis looming, what are choices for developing countries such as India? India has committed to ambitious targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions and plans to reach net-zero emissions by 2070 while enhancing NDC goals by 2030. However, as a developing country, India also must deal with increasing energy demands in the coming decades as it strives to meet basic development goals and achieve improved living standards for all its citizens. Meeting these seemingly opposing objectives (of climate action and development) needs careful consideration of intersectoral dynamics and dependencies to capitalise on synergies and minimize trade-offs. At CSTEP, we have developed a modelling framework that can help examine these synergies and trade-offs, called the Sustainable Alternative Futures for India or SAFARI. In this talk, moderated by Harini Nagendra, Jai Asundi will describe this framing and how he uses it to develop scenarios for India while achieving the country’s development needs.
Presented by:
Speakers
Jai Asundi
Jai Asundi is the Executive Director at the Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy(CSTEP), Bangalore, India. CSTEP is a not-for-profit research organisation with a mission to enrich policymaking with innovative approaches, using science and technology for a sustainable, secure, and inclusive society. He has been involved in research and development projects in multiple areas and his current focus is on organisational development. He spearheaded the creation of the Centre for Air Pollution Studies at CSTEP. His research interests lie in the areas of information technology for development and is working on the development of decisions support systems for a variety of public policy problems. He is a senior member of the IEEE. Prior to CSTEP, Dr. Asundi was faculty in Information Systems at the University of Texas at Dallas. He holds M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh where he is currently Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy.
