IPPAI’s 25th Regulator’s and Policymaker’s Retreat (RPR) is another milestone in the National effort to achieve India’s goal of a Net-Zero economy, which will inform development in the years to come. As erratic weather patterns and climate disasters accelerate, the urgency of decarbonising fossil fuel-driven systems becomes ever more pronounced. Coupled with the resurgence of conflicts in West Asia, Africa, and Eastern Europe, as well as tensions between developed economies that want to scale up fossil fuel production and developing countries undertaking efforts to decarbonise, the kind of global cooperation needed to combat climate change effectively will be extremely difficult to produc.The effects of such developments are seen in conversations at the highest level of intergovernmental collaboration. For instance, representatives of Small Island States and Least Developed Countries walked out of the recent COP 29 as the developed world refused to commit to the minimum target of 1.3 trillion USD annually devoted to climate finance. This contrasts with NATO’s annual budget of 1.4 trillion USD. The global South struggles to find the funds to achieve Net-Zero while the Developed countries struggle to find the political wherewithal to release such funds and transfer technology. With the additional context of colonial histories, it is unfair that the reluctance of the largest polluters to share technology and fund the energy transition jeopardises vulnerable nations worldwide.

Thus, it falls to middle-of-the-pack countries to lead the way. India has already demonstrated its interest in doing so by pursuing Renewable solutions to energy needs far more aggressively than many of its peers. However, to enable the world's largest energy transition, the supply chain gap in the availability of critical minerals and components required by RE technology must be addressed. Making significant strides toward this ambitious goal would showcase effective public policy and leadership, compelling developed economies to follow suit. Such challenges cannot be resolved by purely technical considerations of the power sector; it does not exist in a vacuum. Thus, while the RPR is focused on power sector issues, it must also consider the overarching influences of geopolitical and environmental factors on these questions.