Anyway, I welcome you to India. Stay here for a few years. Live through peak summers with power-cuts due to load shedding. And then repeat your message.

I recognise that this is currently a privileged position - the upfront costs aren’t insignificant - it has cost us about €100k to achieve this degree of low-impact living - but it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s perfectly possible to direct investment in a direction other than massive centralised and industrialised growth, which incurs the problems you describe, and simultaneously provide a better quality of life for the majority. You could subsidise rooftop solar, or local hydroelectric projects, or passive cooling systems, or subsidise people to nurture nature, and both provide energy and cut energy consumption in one fell swoop. India has the opportunity to make good decisions, rather than becoming burdened by what seem like good decisions now, but are bad decisions in the long term. It’s a shame to see that opportunity squandered.

India is already building plenty of solar parks. We still need a lot more power.

I don't want to wear a hair shirt while people in other countries wear the finest silks.

Climate change is THE existential threat of our generation. The only ones which will benefit long term from avoiding the problem are those with a vested interest in fossil fuel companies.