The COVID-19 impacts on India’s low carbon infrastructure

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed unprecedented challenges to the global economy. India faces a multitude of challenges due to COVID-19 impacts. The pandemic-induced economic lockdown has posed barriers to various clean energy and low carbon infrastructure development projects. The renewable energy sector, which has been heavily dependent on global supply chains for meeting the equipment and material demand is expected to fall short of the proposed target of installed capacity. Simultaneously, India’s plans towards developing low carbon infrastructure and the smart cities also have been seriously delayed owing to the pandemic induced crisis. The paper examines the impact of the pandemic on low carbon infrastructure development in the country which mainly includes renewable energy development plans and smart cities. The paper argues that it is critical for the country to develop an adequate emergency response system and sustainable recovery measures to minimize the impacts of economic volatilities in the future.