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“We have missing stones there and missing CRYPTIC CIRCLES ATLANTIC stones here,” he says. “But what we’ve got now OCEAN is good evidence that the people who were Stonehenge, the most complex and building the circle at Waun Mawn stopped in famous stone circle in the British Isles, is Stan the middle of making it. They dig a hole for the just one of about 1,300 of these prehistoric next stone and then don’t fill it. What happened? monuments. Several late Neolithic mega- Outer Hebrid e s Lewis Where did they go? Where are the stones?” sites, including many giant earthwork and timber circles, provide clues that their Callanish Archaeological evidence—or the lack of it— builders traveled long distances to take The Min suggests that few people were living at Waun part in these communal projects. Mawn after 3000 B.C., a date that dovetails Pobull Fhinn nicely with the idea of a migration from Wales. Cringraval “But an absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence,” says Parker Pearson, who hopes kye to return to the Preseli Hills to study ancient Inner Hebrides . Chann pollens that could reveal whether the grazing STONE AGE SITE, MODERN WORLD South Vatersay Sea S lands reverted to wilderness around that time. If of the so, the finding would add weight to his theory A controversial plan to build a two-mile tunnel that the area was abandoned about the time for improving traffic near Stonehenge has been Hebrides Stonehenge was built. temporarily halted by a court order. Mull And if Stonehenge’s curiously shaped stone 62 can’t be conclusively linked with the stone To Avebury and BRITISH Cultoon circle in the Preseli Hills, research by geologists Associated Monuments ISLES Islay Mach Bevins and Ixer has pinpointed the outcrop from which it came, a little to the east of Waun Mawn. Durrington NM “It’s an outcrop that no archaeologist has looked Larkhill at yet,” Bevins says. “As geologists, we can’t tell Durrington Walls the human side of the story, but we can certainly give them a fresh place to pick up the trail.” Till Woodhenge Londonderry I T’S ABOUT A FOUR-HOUR drive STONEHENGE A303 A303 NORTHERN from Waun Mawn to Stonehenge, the last few miles of which are along the A303 Stonehenge von Amesbury UNIT A303. This narrow, potholed, notori- and Associated ously traffic-choked highway passes so close to A Donegal Bay IRELAND B Stonehenge the famous monument is almost a Ba roadside attraction. Monuments If the intention of the original builders of Stonehenge was to create a landmark that would Carrowmore Ballynoe capture the imagination of generations to come, they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. 1 mi Newgrange The global icon is one of Britain’s biggest tourist 1 km draws, attracting more than a million visitors a IRELAND year before the COVID-19 epidemic. Virtually LATE NEOLITHIC-ERA MONUMENTS Galway Bay all of them get here on the A303, which is also a Dublin major truck artery and the road taken by millions (map key) of vacationers to popular seaside resort towns. Shannon In recent decades the A303 has been upgraded Limerick . GeorgeLough Gur 52 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C Stone circles are Henge enclosures Killarney St thought to be civic often surround timber Cork gathering sites, or stone structures. worship centers, A henge is a banked, or burial sites. circular ditch. Celtic Sea P o Monumental mounds Palisaded enclosures There are two main stone types of earth can be found are fences made of at Stonehenge: two-to-four-ton not far from promi- timbers driven into bluestones from 175 miles away in nent enclosures. the ground. Wales and 20-to-40-ton sarsens (sandstone) sourced nearby. THROUGH THE AGES Henges Stone circles Early earthworks were often tombs. By the late Neolithic, grander projects were taken LATE NEOLITHIC on by a mobile society that raised livestock. 3000 Stone, flint, and bone tools Stonehenge construction stages MESOLITHIC NEOLITHIC 4000 B.C. 3500 Farming introduced to Britain around 4000 B.C.

Shetland Hjaltadans Islands Loch of Strom nch BRITISH HOW MEGALITHS ISLES OPE ANCIENT BRITONS ARMED WITH STONE, ROPE, AND TIMBER Ring of Brodgar Orkney EUR nding Stones of Stenness Islands s Aultan Broubster AFRICA Carriblair Moray Firth MYRIAD RINGS Work was both dangerous Hammers of sarsen and plentiful; entire families could weigh from A popular monument type had roles in the construction. two to 65 pounds. for thousands of years, stone HIGHLANDS circles range from just a few stones to complex arrange- Loch Ness ments of over a hundred. SCOTLAND Leadketty Cambrian Mountains F orteviot Stone circle prevalence Temple Balbirnie Firth of Forth none many A Wood Edinburgh Yadlee Lintel n Glasgow Borrowston Rigg 50 mi hrie Blackshouse Meldon 50 km oor Burn Bridge The Stonehenge and nele s Channel nrargoiutgGhldeuniql uMicokteen Newcastle Avebury units form the Du Stonehenge, Avebury and Associated Sites D World Heritage site. TED KINGDOM Castlerigg Belfast THE Marne rkeld Barracks allynahatty Burn Moor York SwinsideGunne PENNINES North Isle of Man Sea Irish Sea Manchester GLAND Arbor Low N Druids' E Trent Wash Circle Anglesey The WALES Birmingham Avebury and Cardigan Associated Monuments Bay Hindwell Avebury Waun Mawn West Kennet Preseli Severn Silbury Hill LONDON Hills Possible route Cardiff Marlborough Mound Marden Henge and Hatfield Barrow of bluestones ENLARGED AT LEFT Bristol Channel Stanton Drew Knowlton Henges and Great Barrow Avon Greyhound Yard Mount Isle of n e l Pleasant Wight hC h a n ngli E s FRANCE BUILDING THE CIRCLES Palisaded enclosures A wealth of sarsen Moving great weights Sculpting the stones Monumental mounds Land 20 miles from Stonehenge Sledges were likely pulled across Every stone had to be turned to Metal tools was littered with huge sarsens timber tracks to reduce friction shape each side. The inner-facing COPPER of fine, hard sandstone. and support weights up to 45 tons. side was always the smoothest. 2500 BRONZE 1500 B.C. 2000 Main stone circle erected

Woodhenge These may have been houses for key FIVE GIANTS families—or spirits. These colossal monument sites of southern At the end of the settle- Ditch B Bank Britain transformed over time with dynamic bursts ment’s use, its perimeter of collective and creative activity. Construction was encircled by a pali- was especially active during a Neolithic building sade of wooden posts boom that peaked around 2500 B.C. (A), then later by a large henge (B), possibly in an effort to memorialize the site’s history. Timber monuments were often found in larger enclo- sures and may have been shrines or temples. Avenue A DIAMETER 1,600 ft AREA SHOWN River BELOW Avon Great Britain UNITED Silbury Hill Avebury KINGDOM Stonehenge Durrington IRELAND Walls Mount BRITISH Pleasant ISLES STONEHENGE Winter solstice DURRINGTON WALLS sunset The circle is precisely arranged to frame Britain’s biggest henge—two miles from the sun during the solstices. With at least ARE APPROXIMATELY TO SCALE. Stonehenge and thought to be home 64 cremations, it has more burials than any to its builders for about 10 years—is the other late Neolithic cemetery in Britain. Football field largest known Neolithic settlement. 360 ft 3000 B.C. 1520 B.C. 2500 B.C. 2300 B.C. N 160+ 2500 B.C. Years of construction and use Heel Stone 1,000 IN THE NEOLITHIC SETTLEMENT DIAMETER 40 tons Some 4,000 people came from STONES ERECTED AT STONEHENGE 360 ft Carpentry techniques to interlock Summer solstice HOUSES near and far to work, trade, and the stones led to unprecedented sunrise feast during farming off-seasons. strength and durability. Excavated bone fragments Tongue and Bluestone Sarsen Human Durrington groove Average weight: Average weight: Stonehenge Walls two tons 20 tons Animal 80,000 50,000 Full 16 x 16 ft stone: 29 ft 31 tons One smaller sarsen doesn’t match the Possible Bluestones were regularly Chalk plaster Central Bed others. Some experts speculate that altar rearranged; their exact posi- over timber hearth the circle was damaged or incomplete. tion in 2500 B.C. is unknown.

An earthen mound may have provided a vantage point into the henge. Stone circle Stone circle Timber and 29 stones 27 stones stone monument Great Obelisk The outer ring—originally Palisaded 21 ft tall of about a hundred stones— enclosure is the world’s largest prehistoric stone circle. Gate Gate Posts were later burned, possibly as part of an attack—or a ritual. DIAMETER DIAMETER 1,475 ft 1,280 ft Entrance 100 ft tall Ditches AV E B U RY SILBURY HILL MOUNT PLEASANT For about six centuries, Avebury was Built over several generations, Europe’s The monument was dominated by a altered as its use likely shifted with time. largest artificial mound holds no known timber fence just inside its henge. Closely Two avenues of stones linked it with human remains. Its purpose may have spaced posts suggest that access—physical other nearby ceremonial sites. been the communal act of building. and visual—was carefully controlled. 2850 B.C. 2250 B.C. 2460 B.C. 2285 B.C. 2580 B.C. 2440 B.C. 36 CUBIC FEET OF CHALK REMOVED Earliest Bank 7.5 HOURS OF LABOR TO BUILD 1,600 MADE UP THE PALISADE mound MILLION Gleaming white when freshly dug, MILLION What began as a modest pile of TIMBERS Postholes are all that’s now left of ditches and banks cut into chalk-rich Ditch gravel grew upward and outward— rotted timbers, perhaps carved, ground made for a striking visual. quarry fed by an encircling ditch. charred, or used to support lintels. Modern Timber DIAMETER Approximately 25 ft ground level retaining wall 525 ft Entrance Retaining walls of chalk and sarsen boul- ders held soil in place. 17 tons Bank Deer antlers, common digging Ditch The stones were variable FERNANDO G. BAPTISTA, 5 ft tools, were used as picks to 30 ft in size and unshaped, MATTHEW W. CHWASTYK, break off chunks of chalk. deep unlike at Stonehenge. AND EVE CONANT, NGM SOURCES: MIKE PARKER PEARSON, UCL INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY; SUSAN GREANEY, STAFF; LAWSON PARKER ENGLISH HERITAGE; MIKE PITTS, BRITISH ARCHAEOLOGY; JIM LEARY, UNIVERSITY OF YORK; BARNEY HARRIS, UCL INSTITUTE OF ARCHAEOLOGY; ORDNANCE SURVEYS OF GREAT BRITAIN, N. IRELAND, AND IRELAND; CANMORE SCOTTISH HERITAGE; HISTORIC ENGLAND; UNESCO

MARKED THE LAND Stanton Drew BANDED TOGETHER TO BUILD UNPRECEDENTED BEHEMOTHS. A sprawling ceremonial complex in its day, Mortise COMPLEX LOGISTICS Stanton Drew boasted Tenon timber circles, two The monument required meticulous planning avenues of standing to achieve equal heights and allow space for stones leading to the workers and timber supports. Its carved and nearby River Chew, interlocking stones make it unique among and one of the largest Neolithic monuments. stone rings in Britain, some 370 feet in diameter. Today 26 stones remain, and ground-penetrating radar has revealed nine rings of timber posts. REUBEN WU; IMAGE MADE WITH 18 LAYERED EXPOSURES Great Sarsen trilithon circle 12 34 Order of construction 5 Bluestones Levers rock the lintel side Workers may have to side; inserted wedges needed up to 1,000 and timbers slowly raise it hammers to shape to the top of the stones. the largest stones. B SHOWN ABOVE Lifting the megaliths A Matching the heights B Final touches Levers, wedges, timber posts, and Once upright, stones were Hollows are carved into the lintel ropes helped move stones down leveled and tenons carved, to match the tenons; then the ramps into upright positions. shaving off up to a ton of stone. lintel is slowly raised into place.



‘EVERYBODY AGREES THAT SOMETHING NEEDS TO BE DONE ABOUT THE A303. THE QUESTION IS, WHAT?’ V I N C E GA F F N E Y, ARCHAEOLOGIST Stanton Drew Druid Adrian Rooke Raising a sword for (above) communes peace, not war, a with a standing stone Druid priestess (right) at Stanton Drew. An blesses the attendees 18th-century Anglican during a summer priest promoted the solstice celebration at idea that Britain’s Stanton Drew, where megaliths were tem- the congregation ples built by ancient includes a herd of cows. Druids, a notion now Modern versions of the long disproved. But religion focus on rev- modern-day Druids erence for the natural feel a special connec- world and veneration tion to the stone circles, of ancestors—including where they gather the builders of Britain’s for rituals marking the ancient monuments. cycle of the seasons. ALICE ZOO (BOTH) 62 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

to a four-lane highway for much of its length, but A controversial proposal to build a two-mile- not the few miles either side of Stonehenge. Con- long, four-lane tunnel to bypass the Stonehenge stant traffic jams mean that it can take locals an site drew fire from archaeologists and sparked hour to drive from one nearby village to another, protests by a coalition of environmentalists and while endless rumbling trucks detract from the Druids. Last year Britain’s High Court found in experience of visiting Stonehenge. favor of the protesters and put the $2.2 billion project on hold. “Everybody agrees that something needs to be done about the A303,” says Vince Gaffney, Ironically, the surprise discovery of a milewide professor of landscape archaeology at the Uni- ring of enormous pits around the nearby henge versity of Bradford. “The question is, what?” at Durrington Walls, dug by Neolithic excavators about 4,400 years ago near the peak of the build- Stonehenge is the centerpiece of a 20-square- ing boom, played a role in thwarting the 21st- mile UNESCO World Heritage site, which in century tunnel diggers. The pits were detected turn abuts areas of environmentally sensitive in 2015 by a high-tech remote sensing survey of land, a military base and proving ground, and 3,000 acres of the Stonehenge landscape that many small communities, so there are few revealed dozens of unexpected monuments. uncontested options for rerouting the highway.

“We noticed these strange anomalies at the In the case of Stonehenge, transporting time but were too busy with everything else to dozens of huge sarsen blocks weighing on aver- follow it up,” says Gaffney, who co-led the survey. age 20 tons each for 15 miles and then erecting “Later, when we went back, we saw we had these them on-site would have required great wooden huge pits forming a giant arc around the henge. sledges, an enormous amount of scaffolding, It was on a scale nobody had ever seen before.” and possibly miles of wooden tracks over which the heavily burdened sledges could be dragged. It was so huge and unexpected that when the (Contrary to popular myth, the one method they team announced their find in 2020, their claims didn’t use was rollers. “Rollers just don’t work,” were met with widespread skepticism, and the says Pitts, citing evidence from many experi- house-size pits were dismissed as naturally ments. “They jam up constantly.”) occurring sinkholes. Additional research, how- ever, proved the ring of pits had indeed been dug Whatever the means of transport, movement by people toward the end of the great Neolithic of the massive stones across the landscape likely building boom, adding yet another layer of mys- attracted crowds of festive onlookers. “It would tery to the era. have been like watching the space shuttle go by,” Pitts says. The tunnel proposal has divided archaeolo- gists, with some seeing it as a workable compro- A S IMPRESSIVE as Stonehenge is, mise for solving the traffic bottleneck. “Sooner you need to drive another 20 miles or later, something is going to have to be done,” to the north to the mega-henge at says archaeologist Mike Pitts, editor of British Avebury to grasp the sheer scale and Archaeology. “The fear is they’ll just take the diversity of the building boom. While Stonehenge easy way and widen the existing highway to has global name recognition and those famous four lanes, and that is something nobody wants.” sarsen trilithons, Avebury, as the 17th-century antiquarian John Aubrey put it, “does as much As for the creators of Stonehenge, the Durring- exceed in greatness the so-renowned Stoneheng ton pits, and countless other monuments, one [sic], as a Cathedral doeth a parish church.” can’t help but think they would have loved the The Avebury henge is almost a mile in circum- tunnel idea, given the havoc they wreaked on ference, so large that nearly its entire namesake village—including a pub, thatched cottages, and MOVEMENT OF THE pastures dotted with sheep—fits comfortably in MASSIVE STONES its embrace. The stone circle within it, at more LIKELY ATTRACTED than a thousand feet in diameter, is the largest CROWDS OF FESTIVE in the world. Two more circles lie inside that, ONLOOKERS. and a grand avenue of standing stones leads ‘IT WOULD HAVE BEEN away from it, stretching a mile and a half across LIKE WATCHING THE the countryside to an outlying stone and timber SPACE SHUTTLE GO BY,’ circle. And for good measure, the eerie mass of SAYS ARCHAEOLOGIST Silbury Hill, composed of 500,000 tons of soil MIKE PITTS. and the largest human-made mound in prehis- toric Europe, is only a 20-minute walk away. their surroundings by their building binge. Hidden beneath this sleepy patch of bot- Britain’s ancient forests bore the brunt of it, not tomland along the River Kennet, just a mile only in the thousands of huge oak trees felled or so downstream from Avebury, lies what to build those enormous palisades but also in Josh Pollard, a professor of archaeology at the the thousands more needed to erect Stonehenge University of Southampton, refers to as the and other megaliths. “People don’t realize the “sleeping giants” of the Avebury landscape: a vast amount of timber that would have been required,” Pitts says. 64 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

Stonehenge Stonehenge’s uprights woodworking—wears Stone 60 appears to bear witness to the a patina of moss melt over a concrete long march of time and and lichen. Victorian filling installed in 1959 visitors. Clockwise from tourists chipped off to stabilize the upright. top left: A trilithon— pieces of the stones as Faint traces of a dagger held together by a souvenirs and carved and axe-head likely mortise-and-tenon their initials, as did date to the Bronze Age. joint borrowed from one H Bridger in 1866. ALICE ZOO (ALL)



Stonehenge Sunset brings peace but not quiet to Stonehenge, which is bordered by a busy highway. “One thing that was jarring, even at night, was the constant noise of nearby traffic,” says photographer Reuben Wu. “I found myself imagining how the place would have felt thousands of years ago.” REUBEN WU; IMAGE MADE WITH 13 LAYERED EXPOSURES

Stonehenge Stonehenge visitor not allowed near the Stonehenge attracts up a connection with the many rises Hanna Lingard greets stones. But solstice to 1.6 million visitors a Earth by removing the story o the sun as a chilly dawn and equinox are open- year, yet many connect their shoes and walking says Nicho breaks on the morning house occasions, and with the structure in barefoot on a warm, with Engli of the autumn equinox. celebrants relish the personal ways. For Lon- late summer evening. the charita To protect the fabled opportunity to venture doner Gary Forrester “People like to see sites zation tha monument from dam- inside the stone circle. and his baby daughter, that have endured over the monum age, most visitors are Vivienne, it was forging time and come through ALICE ZOO ALICE ZOO

series of wooden palisades that were built from monument building a reaction to the changes the trunks of more than 4,000 ancient oaks. they knew were coming? Did they sense this During excavations last summer, Pollard and was the end of the era? Or could it have been his team discovered yet another timber enclo- the monument building itself that caused a col- sure, some 300 feet in diameter, and within it the lapse in the society or its belief system that left a footings of an enormous rectangular great house vacuum that others came to fill? Was there some more than a hundred feet long, with walls made kind of a rebellion against an authority that was of gigantic timbers towering as much as 40 feet ordering all this unsustainable construction?” above the ground. “This would have been a truly astonishing sight,” Pollard says. A more chilling possibility is that a pandemic may have played a role. Scientists have found Yet for all Avebury’s grandeur, and that of the plague bacillus in a Neolithic tomb in Sweden, other monuments nearby, it’s the River Kennet, and earlier this year it was identified in a Bronze flowing through the sleepy Wiltshire countryside Age grave in Somerset. The ancient variety a few hundred yards away, that Pollard believes doesn’t appear to be as virulent as the one that to be the key to understanding the minds of the swept Europe in the 14th century, but there’s Neolithic people who built all these things. no telling what its effects might have been on Britain’s Neolithic people. “I think the river was more important to them than the monuments they built along it,” he says. “It could be that unbeknownst to them, the “You can see it in the creation of Silbury at its diaspora who were on the move at the dawn of source, and in the river’s relationship to the pali- the Bronze Age were spreading an epidemic, sades. It has a connecting role with the monu- wiping out populations and opening up new ments here just as the River Avon does with the areas for people to move into,” says the Univer- monuments in the Stonehenge landscape.” sity of York’s Jim Leary. By the dawn of the 25th century B.C., the peo- One way or another, within a century of ple of Britain surely must have been aware of Stonehenge’s completion, waves of genetically the momentous technological changes unfold- distinct settlers once again were coming over ing on the Continent with the development of from the Continent. History was repeating itself metalworking. In fact, they already may have a hundred generations later, except this time been using copper tools acquired by trade. the newcomers’ ancestry stretched back thou- sands of years to the Eurasian steppes instead “It’s hard to imagine something like the Ave- of to Anatolia. The so-called Beaker people bury palisades being made without copper brought new beliefs, new ideas, their distinctive tools,” says Pollard, adding that any such tools beaker-shaped pottery, and metallurgical skills would almost certainly have been reused and that would define the coming age. recycled many times over during the centuries that followed, making it unlikely that any will be The Neolithic farmers who built Stonehenge unearthed at Neolithic building sites. and scores of other monuments faded into his- tory, their DNA all but vanishing from Britain’s W HAT SPARKED the extraordi- gene pool. The landscape around Stonehenge nary building boom, and how would continue to be an important burial site, and why it came to an end, remain but the era of mega-monuments was over. unsolved mysteries. But archae- “Monument building is usually a kind of peak of a civilization,” Leary says. “But I don’t think s and falls in ologists note an intriguing connection in time this was the peak of a civilization. I think it was of humanity,” the mad, manic, final throw of the dice of a ola Tasker with the rise of the Bronze Age, which arrived in society that knows its time is up.” j sh Heritage, able organi- Britain by way of another mass migration from Living on the south coast of England, longtime t oversees contributor Roff Smith is writing a book ment. the Continent. about cycling. Photographer Reuben Wu is a multidisciplinary artist who uses technology “The dates are awfully close,” says English to conceptualize time and space in storytelling. Alice Zoo is a documentary photographer Heritage’s Susan Greaney. “Was this splurge in whose work explores ideas of ritual and meaning. Fernando G. Baptista is a senior artist for National Geographic. B R I TA I N ’ S S T O N E A G E B U I L D I N G B O O M 71



Stonehenge On the evening before the autumn equinox, a crowd of Druids, pagans, and pilgrims gathers to chant and celebrate the change of seasons. Says Druid Arthur Pen- dragon, “Stonehenge is at once a great solar clock, a pagan temple, a sacred burial site, and a place of Druid reverence and ceremony.” ALICE ZOO

A tri-spine horseshoe crab kicks up sediment along the muddy bot- tom of the Pangatalan Island Marine Protected Area in the Philippines. After a decade of resto- ration work to the islet’s bay, its green waters are rich with plankton and ready to welcome back bigger animals. UNDER THE

BIG TOP HORSESHOE CRABS HAVE LIVED ON THE OCEAN FLOOR FOR 450 MILLION YEARS. NOW THEY PLAY A KEY ROLE IN MEDICINE— B U T I T C O M E S AT A C O ST. BY AMY MCKEEVER PHOTOGRAPHS BY LAURENT BALLESTA 75

A horseshoe crab hides an ecosystem within its shell. The hairlike objects along its body are hydroids—tiny, fuzzy invertebrates related to jellyfish—and there are at least eight shrimps clinging to the crab’s pincers. Horseshoe crabs are relatively unstudied; little is known about how they interact with other species.



H H O R S E S H O E C R A B S A R E B U I LT T O L A S T. With spiky tails, shells shaped like combat helmets, and sharp pincers at the end of eight of their 10 legs, these ancient invertebrates have been scuttling along the ocean floor relatively unchanged for some 450 million years. They managed to survive the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs. Surviving humans may prove more difficult. Like many marine animals, horseshoe crabs are overfished for food and bait, and coastal development has destroyed spawning sites. But they also are collected en masse for their blue blood, which contains a rare clotting agent critical for the development of safe vaccines. The blood may be lifesaving for humans, but its harvest often kills the animals—particularly in much of Asia, where they are drained of all their blood rather than just a portion of it. Tri-spine horseshoe crabs have lost more than half their population in the past 60 years. But on the Philippine islet of Pangatalan, the species is an unexpected symbol of resilience. For years the island’s 11 acres were degraded: trees cut down for timber, mangroves burned for charcoal, and coral reefs overfished with dynamite and cyanide. By 2011 these horseshoe crabs, about 15 inches long, were among the biggest creatures left. Now a marine protected area, Pangatalan is starting to thrive again. Efforts A tanklike horseshoe crab pushes itself to restore its reefs and plant thousands of trees have led many animals to across Pangatalan’s reef, which has bene- return, including rare giant groupers that grow to some eight feet long. fited from the planting of mangroves and Horseshoe crabs may not be as charismatic as elephants or pandas, but creation of artificial reefs. Members of the perhaps they’ll inspire people to care more about wildlife. Appreciation class Merostomata— which means “legs for horseshoe crabs has grown thanks to their role in COVID-19 vaccine attached to the mouth”—horseshoe development. Conservationists hope that regard will translate to stronger crabs are more closely related to spiders habitat protections and wider adoption of a synthetic alternative to crab and scorpions than to crustaceans. blood—saving horseshoe crabs just as they’ve helped save us. j Amy McKeever is a senior staff writer. Laurent Ballesta, named Wildlife Photographer of the Year in 2021, is also a marine biologist. CANADA IA Ranges of S horseshoe crabs A ATLANTIC OCEAN American China Sea JAPAN Limulus polyphemus NORTH AMERICA BANGL. C H I N A Tri-spine UNITED STATES INDIA VIETNAM Tachypleus tridentatus Gulf of MYN. TAIWAN Mexico Mangrove MEXICO PA C I F I C Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda 1,000 mi Bay THAI. PHILIPPINES 1,000 km of Indo-Pacific CAMB. Pangatalan I. Tachypleus SOREN WALLJASPER, NGM STAFF Bengal S. OCEAN gigas SOURCES: STINE VESTBO AND OTHERS, FRONTIERS IN MARINE SCIENCE, MAY BRUNEI 2018; DAVID SMITH AND OTHERS, REVIEWS IN FISH BIOLOGY AND M A L AYS I A FISHERIES, MARCH 2017; JOHN AKBAR AND MARK BOTTON, IUCN SSC SINGAPORE HORSESHOE CRAB SPECIALIST GROUP IN IND O NESIA D IAN OCEAN AUS. 78



This isn’t an alien landscape—it’s an extreme close-up of the topside of a horseshoe crab’s abdomen. The gills are on the underside, and the dashes and indentations mark where they attach to the exoskeleton. The dark points beneath are minute spines that may function as whiskers do on a cat.





Golden trevallies swim above a horseshoe crab, hoping to catch leftovers as it digs in the mud for clams and other prey. As bigger fish slowly return to the reef, horseshoe crabs may no longer rule the ecosystem. But they remain symbols of its resilience. 83

INDIA’S ENERGY CHALLENGE BY YUDHIJIT BHATTACHARJEE P H OTO G R A P H S BY ARKO DATTO

C A N T H E N AT I O N M E E T T H E DEMANDS OF A BOOMING MIDDLE CLASS W H I L E CURBING C A R B O N E M I S S I O N S ? T H E P L A N E T ’ S FUTURE MIGHT DEPEND ON THE ANSWER. 85



Pedestrians, motor- PREVIOUS PHOTO cycles, and taxis crowd a street in Mumbai, An illuminated India’s financial center. Mumbai sprawls About 21 million peo- toward the horizon in ple live in the city and this view from India’s the surrounding urban tallest residential area. India is poised to building, a 76-story overtake China as the luxury tower. The most populous nation. vibrant city reflects That growth poses a the ambitions of the challenge as India tries growing middle class, to reduce its green- which is placing more house gas emissions. demands on the coun- try’s electrical grid.



Turning sunlight into electricity is key to India’s alternative energy future. Utilities are offered incentives to build plants at large solar parks. This one in Bhadla, Rajasthan, in northwest India, is one of the world’s larg- est. At 22 square miles, it’s nearly the size of Manhattan and can power a million homes. SAUMYA KHANDELWAL

O Chetan Singh Solanki, O N A WA R M A N D H U M I D M O R N I N G in the central a solar energy profes- Indian state of Madhya Pradesh last September, sor, spreads his message Chetan Singh Solanki stepped off a bus he’d been that solar power can living in for the past 10 months and walked into make the country a high school auditorium in the small town of energy independent. Raisen, where 200 students, teachers, and offi- He was inspired by cials had gathered to hear him speak. Mohandas Gandhi’s famous 1930 march, A solar energy professor at the Indian Insti- which moved tens of tute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai, Solanki is a thousands to protest slender man in his mid-40s with a boyish and demand freedom appearance and a quick smile that are assets from Great Britain. for the mission he’s on. In late 2020 he took a leave to make an 11-year road trip around India to inspire action to fight climate change. Solanki’s vehicle is a mobile demonstration of the utility of renewable energy: Solar panels generate enough electricity to run the lights, fans, computers, stove, and television on board. 90 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

After being garlanded and welcomed on the feeling distressed because some fans have been stage, Solanki made an unusual request. turned off? Thinking, Oh God, how am I going to make it?” The audience laughed. “I see 15 ceiling fans in this room. It’s the mid- dle of the day, there’s so much sunlight outside, The point Solanki was making is one of two yet we have so many lights on in here,” he said. that he hopes will persuade Indians to achieve “Do we really need all of these fans and lights? what he calls Energy Swaraj, or energy self- Let’s turn some of them off and see if we’ll be reliance. One idea is to save energy directly by OK with it.” reducing usage and indirectly by consuming less stuff. The other is to generate electricity locally A couple of students got up to do what he from renewable resources such as the sun, so asked. “Leave some of them on, though!” Solanki every town becomes self-sufficient. During the joked when one student got carried away. next decade, India’s greenhouse gas emissions are projected to increase steeply as the economy With half the lights and fans switched off, the expands and the population grows to 1.5 billion, auditorium felt warmer and darker. But, Solanki surpassing China’s population. asked, did it really matter all that much? “We can see one another just fine, which means there’s “Humankind’s lust for never ending economic sufficient light in this room,” he said. “Is anyone I N D I A’ S E N E R G Y C H A L L E N G E 91

A tunnel below Gujarat International Finance Tec-City near Ahmed- abad in western India holds utilities that help make it an envi- ronmentally friendly “smart city.” These include centralized cooling, efficient water use, and wastewater recycling. GIFT City’s high-rises are being built to green stan- dards, a third of its land will remain open space, and its streets will be lit with LEDs.



growth is rapidly changing the planet’s climate,” many out of poverty. But it also will mean a tsu- he warned. “Our arrogance makes us think we nami of new consumers who will want spacious can keep increasing consumption without con- homes and air conditioners and appliances and sequence. But the world has finite resources. cars, significantly increasing the country’s car- Unless we change our ways, future generations bon footprint. will have to endure great suffering.” On August 15, India will celebrate 75 years of Solanki grew up in a small village and was the independence. The country has made monu- first in his family to get a college degree. At IIT, mental progress during that period: achieving he founded a center for solar cell technology. self-sufficiency in food production, creating Aiming to kick-start a grassroots solar revolu- a space program that launched an orbiter to tion, he started a nonprofit called the Energy Mars, supplying vaccines to about a hundred Swaraj Foundation, which trains rural women countries, and transforming into a technological to assemble and sell solar lamps and rooftop powerhouse and the sixth largest economy in panels. Three years ago he started thinking the world. about how Mohandas Gandhi—whom Solanki idolizes—might have responded to the climate Now, as an emerging world power, India is crisis. That’s how he came up with the road trip: stepping up to tackle climate change. With the He’s hoping to spark a mass movement, just as creation of 45 solar parks; a plan to have 40 per- Gandhi did when he led a historic 25-day, 241- cent of buses, 30 percent of private cars, and 80 mile march during India’s freedom struggle percent of two- and three-wheelers go electric by against British rule. 2030; and a mission to become a global leader in the production of hydrogen as an alternative to Solanki’s exhortation to live simply may seem fossil fuels, the country is making strides toward surprising in a country with such low per capita greening its future—and the world’s. consumption. On average, Indians use goods and services worth about a thousand dollars a Even so, India faces more daunting challenges year—one-fortieth of what Americans do. Yet than any other country. The rapid expansion of Solanki’s approach could be critical to India’s its middle class will drive up energy consump- efforts to reduce its contribution to global tion during the next two decades more than any- warming. At the country’s current rate of eco- where else. To meet the demand, India likely will nomic growth, the middle class is expected to remain heavily dependent on coal—an abun- double by 2030, to 800 million. This will be a dant resource—for many years while continuing welcome milestone for India because it will lift to increase its petroleum imports. The stakes couldn’t be higher. The planet’s future hinges, TOP EMITTERS Annual carbon emissions 2020 Rank: Greenhouse gas emissions by country, top six emitters 1. China have climbed as countries, many without strong carbon-curbing 10.7 billion regulations, have grown wealth- ier. China and India have low per metric tons capita emissions compared with such high-consuming nations as 10 of CO2 the United States. But they’re home to a combined one-third of billion metric tons of CO2 tons of CO2 the world’s population, elevating per capita both into the list of top polluters. Annual CO2 1 Change from 1990 to 2020 (circle size) emissions 10 China and Global population share, 2020 per capita, rising metric tons India 5 4. India An urbanization boom has 2.5 caused China’s emissions billion 1990 2.4 billion to surge. As the populations 1.8 of both developing coun- 2.5 tries moved out of poverty, billion 2.1 fossil fuel use increased. China All other nations 0.6 billion 17.1 18.5% 0.7 $20,000 India Four other top 17.7% emitters, 13.5% 0/$0 $10,000 Gross domestic product per capita* TAYLOR MAGGIACOMO, NGM STAFF SOURCES: HANNAH RITCHIE, OUR WORLD IN DATA; THE WORLD BANK

in many ways, on how India navigates the path that climate change needed to be tackled by ahead, balancing its pursuit of strong economic industrialized nations, such as the U.S., because growth with the need to curb emissions. they had been pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere long before India had much of a I NDIA IS THE FOURTH BIGGEST carbon footprint. The disparity in the share of responsibility for the problem is hard to miss. All emitter of greenhouse gases, one needs to do is compare lifestyles in the West, behind China, the United States, where personal car ownership, air-conditioned and the European Union. Prime homes, and other energy-intensive comforts are the norm, with the way that most Indians live, Minister Narendra Modi has even today—in a state of extreme austerity. pledged to reach net-zero emis- As the changing climate sparked increasing alarm in the mid-2000s, India became more sions by 2070—20 years past the willing to search for solutions. “There was a growing feeling that we need to go beyond deadline set by the U.S. and 10 years later than ascribing blame,” says R.R. Rashmi, a former bureaucrat who represented India in climate China’s. India also has promised to reduce its negotiations for many years and is now a fellow at the Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in emissions intensity—the volume of emissions New Delhi. “It’s a global problem; everybody must share the burden.” per unit of gross domestic product—before the India has plenty of reasons to be worried. The end of the decade, to 45 percent lower than it was country’s 4,670-mile coastline is under threat from sea-level rise, especially the low-lying east- in 2005. The country’s total emissions, however, ern coast, which could be calamitous for tens of millions of people. This spring, after the hottest are predicted to keep rising until about 2045. March on record, an extended heat wave sent temperatures soaring above 100 degrees across The long horizon to get to net zero and the much of the country, withering crops in the field. Droughts also are becoming more severe. insistence on using emissions intensity, rather Cyclones are lashing the coasts with increasing fury, flooding urban areas. than emissions, to track progress disappointed some environmental activists, but Indian offi- cials say the country is doing more than its fair share within the constraints of a developing nation. Until about 15 years ago, India’s stance, still common among developing countries, was Russia’s Soviet legacy Europe’s efforts pay off The U.S. keeps emissions in check Emissions fell when the Soviet The European Union, through Regulations, as well as a shift from Union collapsed in 1991 and a mix of policies and low-carbon coal toward cleaner energy sources Russian industries declined. fuel sources, saw a 24 percent such as natural gas, helped emissions Country and per capita emis- drop in emissions even as its drop 20 percent after they rose in sions are still below 1990 levels. economy grew by 60 percent. the 1990s and early 2000s. 5.1 billion 2. United States 20.3 4.7 billion 3.9 bil. 3. EU Japan evens out 14.2 The 2011 Fukushima nuclear $60,000 9.2 5.8 2.6 billion disaster led to a spike in fossil fuel use. Emissions remain 5. Russia† 6. Japan‡ high but have returned to 1990 levels and stabilized. 1.6 billion 1.2 bil. 1.1 billion $50,000 10.8 9.3 8.7 $30,000 $40,000 *GDP DATA IS BASED ON PURCHASING POWER PARITY †1990 DATA IS FOR THE RUSSIAN REPUBLIC OF THE U.S.S.R. IN CONSTANT 2017 INTERNATIONAL DOLLARS. ‡2019 DATA

Coal power plants in the southeastern city of Chennai are blamed for polluting Ennore Creek and its fishing communities with fly ash, the residue cre- ated when pulverized coal is burned. India has pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2070 but plans to continue using coal, an abundant resource, for decades.



Primary energy source ASIA by state or territory, 2018 Coal Srinagar Leh Oil JAMMU AND LADAKH Traditional biomass KASHMIR Total energy consumption, 2018 INDIA (all sources) INDIAN 800 HIMACHAL OCEAN terawatt- PRADESH 50 200 400 PUNJAB hours Shimla Ludhiana Chandigarh Hazardous burning Dehra Dun Widespread use of traditional Population density UTTARAKHAND biomass fuels, such as firewood and farm waste, is a national ILow High esert HARYANA health crisis. Some 660 million Indians are exposed to harmful Bikaner DELHI indoor pollution from cooking. New Delhi D n UTTAR PRADESH Bhadla i a Agra G A NLuckGnowE SIKKIM* Jaisalmer d Gangtok n I t Jaipur Grea S PLAIN Ea RAJASTHAN Gwalior N D IBIHAR s t Prayagraj Patna e rKota Varanasi n Gujarat Rewa JHARKHAND Gandhinagar Gujarat International Raisen Dhanbad WEST Ranchi BENGAL Finance Tec-City Bhopal Jabalpur Jamshedpur Kolkata GUJARAT Ahmedabad Indore CHHATTISGARH Rajkot Dholera Smart City MADHYA Raipur Dholera PRADESH N Surat Nagpur ODISHA MAHARASHTRA Bhubaneshwar Nasik DECCA Thane Palava s Mumbai Smart t City a h OTHER UNION Pune PLATEAU TERRITORIES n INDIA’S CENTRALLY r Sholapur G Vishakhapatnam ADMINISTERED AREAS ARE e STATISTICALLY COMBINED, t Hyderabad Amaravati EXCEPT DELHI AND s JAMMU AND KASHMIR. e TELANGANA W Panaji Kurnool GOA ANDHRA KARNATAKA PRADESH Coal drives emissions India imports coal even though Pavagada Kadapa it has the world’s fifth largest reserves. Coal fuels 72 percent Ananthapuramu of India’s electricity; coal-fired power plants are the country’s The rise of solar power Bengaluru Chennai biggest source of emissions. In country rankings, India is Mangaluru now the world’s fourth larg- sMysuru Ariyalur More oil to fuel more cars est generator of energy from t Demand for oil doubled over the sun. By 2030, solar is a TAMIL the past two decades, driven by expected to have outpaced h NADU a fivefold increase in personal all other renewables here. G vehicle ownership since 2000. Coimbatore At 75 percent, India is second Large solar park only to China in net oil imports. 100 mi KERALA Madurai 100 km Thiruvananthapuram Adani Kamuthi RILEY D. CHAMPINE AND DIANA MARQUES, NGM STAFF; KIM MIHALIK. SOURCES: PETER ZENIEWSKI, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY; JIGAR SHAH, GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY; OUR WORLD IN DATA; WORLDPOP; INSTITUTE FOR ENERGY ECONOMICS AND FINANCIAL ANALYSIS

INDIA How the nation will supply energy to its quickly grow- POWERS ing and urbanizing population has profound implications for the effort to slow climate change. India is projected UP to account for a quarter of the growth in global energy demand by 2040. A pivot from Earth-heating fossil fuels toward renewable energy, such as solar and wind, would make India a leader in sustainability. Energy demand by source, India Emissions by source, global, 2017 ARUNACHAL 18,000 NUCLEAR 3 Metric tons of greenhouse PRADESH* RENEWABLES† gases per gigawatt-hour terawatt- of electricity produced hours 43 TRADITIONAL BIOMASS 230 Itanagar 1% NATURAL 3% GAS ASSAM* OIL Dispur NAGALAND* 9,000 20% COAL 490 Fossil fuels emit Kohima 720 much more AShillong 6% CO2 than other 26% sources for MEGHALAYA* Imphal NORTHEAST the same unit of electricity MANIPUR* STATES generated. TRIPURA* *THESE EIGHT 44% NORTHEASTERN Agartala Aizawl STATES ARE MIZORAM* STATISTICALLY COMBINED. 2000 2019 2040 820 MANY STATES, Energy consumption varies widely among India’s 28 states and GROWING NEEDS eight territories, generally reflecting income level and industrial activity. Yet electricity use is skyrocketing nationwide. Since 2000 around 900 million people have connected to the power grid, which is primarily supplied by coal-fired plants. Per capita energy consumption, megawatt-hours, 2018 Rich and urban states Selected states Electricity Renew- Traditional Fossil Oil Natural gas Coal and territories demand ables biomass fuels City dwellers, increasing in number, consume more DELHI energy for personal use— KARNATAKA especially electricity for TAMIL NADU appliances and gasoline MAHARASHTRA refined from oil for cars. 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 3 4.5 Industrial states GUJARAT CHHATTISGARH The main producers of iron, steel, and cement ODISHA are the top energy users JHARKHAND per capita. Coal is the main resource powering 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 3 4.5 6 7.5 India’s building boom. Poor and rural states WEST BENGAL MADHYA PRADESH Burning of traditional biomass, including ani- UTTAR PRADESH mal waste, is common BIHAR in these states, where many can’t afford cleaner cooking fuels. 1.5 1.5 1.5 1.5 †INCLUDES WIND, SOLAR, HYDROELECTRIC, AND GEOTHERMAL ENERGY, AS WELL AS MODERN BIOMASS (AGRICULTURAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND ANIMAL WASTE CONVERTED INTO TRANSPORTATION FUEL OR ELECTRICITY GENERATION)

“A deep depression may take the form of RIGHT a cyclonic storm, a cyclonic storm may become a severe cyclonic storm, and a severe one may turn Rakesh Kumar (stand- into a very severe cyclonic storm,” says Suruchi ing) and his father, Bhadwal, a researcher at TERI. “So the nature of Selvadurai, fishermen the events is changing.” from the southern state of Tamil Nadu, ply the India’s vulnerability to climate change is a waters of Pichavaram, prime motivation for the country’s policymakers the world’s second larg- to act, but concern over India’s energy security— est mangrove forest. the country will spend a hundred billion dollars The trees store a mod- this year on oil imports—is another driver. est amount of carbon in the soil, but climate “India is really starting well,” says Niklas change is bringing less Höhne, a researcher at the NewClimate Institute rainfall, variable salinity, in Germany, citing, in particular, the expansion and higher tempera- of renewable energy and the development of tures, which could transportation systems that don’t rely on fos- decrease the forest’s sil fuels. But he points out that not all of India’s carbon capacity. steps are in the right direction. The country relies on 285 coal-fired plants—and plans to BELOW build 48 more by the end of the decade. A municipal worker T O TRY TO UNDERSTAND waters a newly planted tree in Dholera Smart India’s dependence on City, a development coal, I visited Jharia in the in Gujarat near the coal-rich eastern state of Gulf of Khambhat. A planned solar park Jharkhand. Standing on there is raising con- cerns about how it the edge of a 30-foot-deep might affect marshes used by migrating pit the size of a few foot- birds. Rising seas and flooding are already ball fields, I watched workers load explosives into eroding the coastline. holes drilled in a far corner. Somebody handed mining at the Indian Institute of Technology in nearby Dhanbad with years of experience in the me a hard hat, and a supervisor ordered the industry. A soft-spoken man who had helped organize my visit, Bhattacharjee is a member of a charges detonated. The sound echoed across government panel studying the future of coal in India. According to the panel’s projections, the the coal mine. Rocks flew high in the air. A dust country’s demand for coal is expected to reach about 1.4 billion tons by 2035. cloud billowed over the site of the explosion. “We cannot afford to not increase our pro- This quarry is new. Miners will blast out sev- duction,” Bhattacharjee told me. “Once we get to 1.4 billion tons, we may plateau for five to eral more feet of earth to get to the coal seam. 10 years and then start declining. But that’ll be by 2050 or so.” India is opening more mines like this one to A giant dump truck trundled past us, loaded meet its growing needs. The choice to continue with rocks and soil. Rubble from mines has left the landscape dotted with hillocks. Bhattachar- burning coal, instead of switching to cleaner jee described a conversation he’d had days earlier with a senior official from Coal India, the fuels, is driven by a simple fact: India has enor- world’s largest coal producer, who’d told him: “I’m getting so many calls from either the coal mous coal reserves, nearly a tenth of the world’s secretary or the coal minister or power plants— everybody’s asking for coal, coal, and coal.” total. And yet its production capacity of about 850 million tons a year isn’t enough. The country imports about 200 million tons annually. After the blast, I walked over to a corrugated metal shed where workers congregate and talked with Ram Madhab Bhattacharjee, a professor of 100 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C

I N D I A’ S E N E R G Y C H A L L E N G E 101

Phasing out coal also is challenging because better access to coal than do the newer ones, nearly four million Indians rely on it for their which utilize it more efficiently. livelihoods. Besides mine workers, thousands of people make a living by scavenging for lumps at “When you shut down some of these older mines and lugging sacks of stolen coal on bicy- plants, your overall coal demand will come cles to sell on the black market for use in homes, down,” Pai says. Places dependent on coal, restaurants, and factories. “There’s already a lot like Jharkhand, will need to create alternative of unemployment here,” Jitender Singh, a mine sources of employment—a challenge facing worker, told me. “If you end coal production, it other parts of the world, such as West Virginia will make things worse for this region.” in the U.S. “Some of these states have really good tourism potential,” Pai says. Another idea None of the workers I spoke with, includ- is to reclaim abandoned mines for agriculture ing Singh, knew much about climate change. and other purposes—a task that could employ “I haven’t had any time to watch the news on a great many people for years. television,” Rajesh Chauhan, a supervisor, told me. “I work my shift here, then I go home and I NDIA ALREADY IS MOVING take care of my family.” Talking with the work- ers about global warming felt embarrassingly toward a future in which a large esoteric and far removed from their concerns share of its energy will come of everyday living. Some wondered how they from the sun, wind, and water. would survive if the mines were shut down. Others were more optimistic. “There will always Since 2010, when the Indian be work to be found,” Chauhan said. government set a modest target The country needs to prepare for the tran- sition away from coal, says Sandeep Pai, a of 20 gigawatts of solar capacity researcher with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., who by 2022, the amount has grown dramatically. is collaborating with policymakers in India to help shape these plans. One imperative is to This has been driven by the plummeting cost of optimize coal consumption by extracting more energy per unit. Because of their proximity photovoltaic cells and a government initiative to mines and agreements with India’s coal- producing companies, older power plants have to create large parks where utility companies are incentivized to build solar plants. India DIVERGING PATHS Emissions rose steadily from 2000 until the COVID-19 pandemic, driven by the doubling of energy If India makes no changes to its energy use, under a demand as the growing population urbanized. business-as-usual model, the International Energy Agency projects that emissions from coal, oil, natural gas, and bio- 2010 mass will continue to climb steadily. Alternately, if it fulfills current governmental proposals to improve efficiency and *INCLUDES EFFICIENCY GAINS IN BUILDINGS, invest in renewable energy and sustainable biofuels, India INDUSTRY, TRANSPORT, AND POWER GENERATION will be on track for net-zero emissions by the mid-2060s. 2 billion metric tons of greenhouse gases Emissions from Indian energy production 1 2000 DIANA MARQUES, NGM STAFF; KIM MIHALIK SOURCE: PETER ZENIEWSKI, INTERNATIONAL ENERGY AGENCY

passed the original target of 20 gigawatts four The solar park at Bhadla is one of the larg- years before the deadline and is in a dash to est in the world, able to produce about 2.25 meet a revised one of 100 gigawatts before the gigawatts of electricity—enough to power a end of the year. India’s current renewable energy million households. Several others have been capacity is about 151 gigawatts from solar, wind, commissioned in Rajasthan, and more are in biomass, and hydroelectric. But last year Modi development. I toured one near Jaisalmer, announced that the country would generate a city close to India’s border with Pakistan best 500 gigawatts by 2030. known for a magnificent medieval fortress that attracts tourists during the cooler months. An In pursuit of this ambitious goal, India is official from the agency and I drove about counting on the expansion of solar and wind 40 miles from the city into a flat, sandy expanse projects in states such as Rajasthan, two-thirds sparsely dotted with vegetation. of which is covered by desert. In the summer, temperatures can soar above 110 degrees. Shim- Entering the park, we drove past thousands mering heat and strong winds there often force of boxes of solar panels stacked one on top of people to stay indoors for hours at a stretch another over an area the size of a city block, during the day. The conditions are so inhos- waiting to be unpacked and mounted on rows pitable that huge tracts are devoid of human of metal pillars. Several acres already had pan- habitation. Subodh Agarwal, the top administra- els installed. Every few days, the panels need tor of a district in the state’s desert region in the to be hosed down to remove the thick film of 1990s, recalls getting stuck in dust storms. dust that accumulates on their surface. Walking “The roads would disappear under sand,” he says. between two rows, I heard the whir of a motor tilting the panels a few degrees to adjust to the Until recently, this foreboding landscape was angle of the sun’s rays as the day progressed. viewed as a wasteland. But some of it has begun Inside a nearby building, a half dozen engi- to undergo a remarkable transformation. At a neers were seated in front of computer screens, place called Bhadla, a 22-square-mile area has watching for modules that needed trouble- been turned into a sea of blue by row upon row of shooting. “Right this minute, we’re producing solar panels. “It’s a color people aren’t used to see- 167 megawatts of electricity,” an engineer told ing in the desert,” says Agarwal, who has played me, pointing to a graph on his monitor that a role in this transformation as the former head showed the power output steadily rising since of the Rajasthan Renewable Energy Corporation, morning. “We’ll hit peak between 12 and one, a government agency that sets aside land and and then keep going down until sunset.” finds investors for solar and wind projects. Ways to reduce emissions 4 Renewables will need to meet new electricity demand and displace coal. Broad energy- Reductions due to: 3 efficiency measures and the use of low-carbon fuels Increased energy 2 in industries such as cement also will be critical. efficiency* Business as usual Renewables Current governmental proposals CCUS† Emissions are expected Other‡ to peak around 2026 under this scenario. PROJECTED 2030 Billion metric tons 2020 of greenhouse gases 1 2040 †CARBON CAPTURE, UTILIZATION, AND STORAGE ARE TECHNOLOGIES DESIGNED TO ‡INCLUDES OTHER WAYS TO LOWER EMISSIONS, SUCH AS REMOVE CARBON DIOXIDE FROM INDUSTRIAL EMISSIONS AND THE ATMOSPHERE. NUCLEAR ENERGY AND REDUCED INDUSTRIAL CONSUMPTION

Residents of Palava’s apartment towers take an evening stroll on manicured grounds. As India’s middle class grows, upscale devel- opments with high security and plentiful amenities are prolif- erating. Palava offers a more affordable middle-class lifestyle than Mumbai, about a 25-mile drive away.



One hurdle for India is the dearth of domes- tic solar cell manufacturing. The panels at the site I visited were entirely made in India, but most solar installations rely on imports from China. Earlier this year, the Indian government announced a $2.6 billion program to accelerate solar equipment manufacturing. India is counting on large-scale projects, but there’s also the hope embodied by Solanki that Indians themselves will join the solar revolu- tion. Farmers, for example, can take advan- tage of a new government program allowing them to lease their agricultural land—which previously was restricted to farming—for solar power plants and solar pumps. In sun-rich states such as Rajasthan and Gujarat, home- owners and businesspeople are installing solar modules on their rooftops. And women in rural Rajasthan and Maharashtra, with help from Solanki’s Energy Swaraj Foundation, are start- ing companies to make solar products. I N D I A’ S T RA N S P O RTAT I O N Workers take a lunch break at the Integral minister, Nitin Gadkari, a Coach Factory in Chen- straight-talking politician who nai, which makes pas- seems to have a perpetual smile, senger railcars. One of the largest such facil- showed up earlier this year at ities in the world, it’s also carbon negative, parliament, in New Delhi, in a using less electricity than the company gen- hydrogen-powered car. He was erates from windmills and solar power plants. making a point. As he told reporters, the gov- CEO of NITI Aayog, the country’s chief plan- ernment intends to make the country a leading ning agency. “India has been a champion of renewable energy. The challenge for it now is to manufacturer of green hydrogen. become a champion of the clean molecule—and that is green hydrogen,” he says. The idea is that The bulk of hydrogen produced today is driving down the price by scaling up production will make it a viable alternative to petroleum— derived from fossil fuels. Green hydrogen especially for long-haul trucks, ships, and air- planes, which cannot be powered by batteries. is made by splitting water through electrolysis, Nearly a quarter of India’s emissions come using renewable energy. As a fuel for transpor- from industry, which is under increasing reg- ulatory pressure to switch to cleaner fuels and tation, it would cut emissions since burning be more energy efficient. The country’s cement manufacturers—second only to the iron and hydrogen produces no greenhouse gases. It also steel industry as a source of emissions, account- ing for 8 percent—have become greener. A ton would lower the carbon footprint of industries that need hydrogen to make goods such as fertil- izer and steel. And unlike wind and solar, which are intermittent, green hydrogen can be stored for future use, just like fossil fuels. As the costs of renewable energy and electro- lyzers come down, green hydrogen is expected to become cheaper. India wants to reduce its cost 75 percent by 2030, says Amitabh Kant, the 106 N AT I O N A L G E O G R A P H I C