Up in the foothills of the Himalayas, the region of Uttarakhand is getting the Indian government’s attention. The state of 10 million inhabitants, bordering both China and Nepal, has become a vast open-air building site.
The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi fully intends to take advantage of the region’s geographical position to make it a hub for renewable energy.
India, the world’s third-biggest carbon emitter, which gets 80 percent of its electricity from coal, is counting on the large-scale construction of hydroelectric power stations in the region to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.
Uttarakhand certainly has assets: the state is home to dozens of rivers, especially the Ganges and the Yamuna, the country’s largest waterways.