My top 10 Learnings from IIMB SCMC Climate summit 2026

 

Ten things I learned at the IIMB Climate Summit 2026

Two days, one campus, and a world running out of time

George  ·  May 30, 2026  ·  Bengaluru  ·  8 min read

I spent May 28 and 29 at the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore for their Climate Summit — a dense, energising, occasionally alarming two-day gathering of policy-makers, industry leaders, scientists, lawyers, and one actual astronaut. My notebook is now full of circled facts and underlined questions. Here, distilled, are ten things that genuinely shifted my thinking.

LEARNING 01

The world is headed toward energy surplus, not energy scarcity

Manoj Kumar Singh, CEO of Net Zero Think, opened the summit with what sounded like a provocation but turned out to be a thesis backed by data: by 2030, the world will have more energy generation capacity than it knows what to do with — if we invest correctly. The bottleneck is not physics. It is politics, vested interests, and inertia. His phrase "Energy Surplus World by 2030" deserves to be on more people's desks.

LEARNING 02

Solar panels in orbit are no longer a joke

SpaceX-level launch economics have made Low Earth Orbit solar collection a plausible near-term proposition. The conference noted that 15,000 LEO satellites could harvest solar energy in space — uninterrupted by night, clouds, or seasons — and beam it down. The question is no longer whether the physics works. It is whether the political will and the capital will arrive in time.

LEARNING 03

Our buildings are a hidden climate catastrophe

India's Energy Conservation Building Code (ECBC) remains largely voluntary. Speakers were blunt: compliance is the exception, not the rule. Embedded carbon in construction — from cement to steel — is a massive and systematically under-reported source of emissions. Green certifications like LEED Platinum to Silver benchmarks for new buildings coming up is a real blessing.  The gap is enormous. And we are building at an unprecedented pace.

LEARNING 04

50% of global wars have been fought over energy

This one stopped me cold. Singh's argument: solving energy scarcity is not just a climate intervention, it is a peace intervention. Historically, half of all global armed conflicts have had energy access — oil, gas, coal, water — at their root. An energy-abundant world is, structurally, a more peaceful world. Climate action as conflict prevention: it is an argument that deserves far more airtime in geopolitics discussions.

LEARNING 05

India's sludge problem is actually a goldmine

Only 25% of India's sewage sludge is treated. The rest is dumped — into land, into water, into the future. But the PKC Box / CAMBT session showed that this is also an enormous missed opportunity. The pathway of Sludge → Biogas → Biofertiliser could simultaneously address waste management, energy generation, and agricultural inputs. Toyota is already piloting bio-methane at scale. The technology exists. The will — and the infrastructure — lags.

LEARNING 06

Every death in India costs two trees

At India's mortality scale, cremation using firewood destroys approximately two trees per person who dies. Multiplied across a billion-plus population, this is a significant and rarely discussed driver of deforestation. Bamboo and compressed briquettes are viable alternatives — cheaper, cleaner, and available. Yet cultural habit has kept firewood dominant. This is the kind of problem that policy alone cannot solve.

LEARNING 07

Karnataka's farms are acutely exposed to what is coming

60% of Karnataka's agriculture is rain-fed. Not irrigated. Not buffered. Rain-fed — meaning it is directly, nakedly dependent on monsoon patterns that are growing increasingly erratic. Speakers discussed precision agriculture, automation, and drought-resistant crops as mitigations, but the structural vulnerability is stark. For a state that is simultaneously India's tech capital and a major agricultural producer, this tension is going to define the next decade.

LEARNING 08

India's power math is ambitious but not yet closed

274 GW installed today. 500 GW targeted by 2030. Solar costs ₹3–6 per unit — genuinely cheap. But solar-plus-storage — the dispatchable, 24-hour clean power that actually replaces coal — costs ₹20–30 per unit. That gap is the central unsolved equation of India's energy transition. Until storage economics improve dramatically, we will keep reaching for coal when the sun goes down.

LEARNING 09

Ecocide should be a crime — and the argument is gaining ground

A Supreme Court advocate made a compelling case that the deliberate, large-scale destruction of ecosystems should be codified as Ecocide — a crime against the Earth, prosecutable under international law. The concept has been gaining ground in global legal forums for years. In a country where forests, rivers, and coastlines are routinely sacrificed to "development," placing Ecocide in the same moral category as genocide would be genuinely transformative.

LEARNING 10

AI will cut India's energy intensity — but it will also cut jobs

The summit did not let AI off the hook. Yes, intelligent systems could reduce India's industrial energy intensity by approximately 40% — a significant and achievable gain. But the same automation wave will eliminate millions of "decent jobs," in the summit's own phrasing. The transition cannot be celebrated without also planning for the people it displaces. Energy efficiency and employment justice are not separate problems.

Two days, one notebook, and more questions than answers — which is, I suspect, exactly the point of a good conference. The climate crisis is not waiting for us to be ready. It is asking only whether we are paying attention. I am trying to.

— George, Bengaluru, May 2026

Egyptian mummies

British Museum details..

River Thames Walk ..

Went for a great walk besides the Thames..

River Thames

Silent silver thread,  

From Cotswold green you run,  

Through ancient stone and whispered dream,  

Beneath the golden sun.  

You cradle towers tall and proud,  

Carry echoes of the past—  

Kings and barges, fog and tide,  

In your gentle waters cast.  

Timeless guardian of the city,  

Where history softly flows,  

In your quiet grace we see  

The beauty only London knows.

This is the Thames .. 🙏🙏👍👍 (generous help from Perplexity.. 😀) ..

On London bridge across the Thames..

London city visit after attending church service at St Paul's cathedral..

Deus Lunus statue, Woolwich, London

This image depicts the Deus Lunus statue, a late Roman sculpture located at the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, London. Easaw and Anna stay in the Royal Arsenal building area in Woolwich.

Historical Background

The statue has a fascinating history involving both ancient origins and British military campaigns:

 * Discovery: It was dug up by British troops (the 3rd Regiment of Guards, later the Scots Guards) in 1801 while they were making entrenchments during the siege of Alexandria in Egypt.

 * Naming: Although the plaque identifies it as "Deus Lunus" (a moon god), modern scholars believe it actually depicts a Roman barbarian. It was likely one of a pair of figures that supported an architectural feature in a public building or necropolis.

 * Arrival in London: It was brought to the UK in September 1802, likely alongside other famous Egyptian artifacts like the Rosetta Stone.

Current Location

You can find it standing outside the Royal Brass Foundry building on No. 1 Street. (Where Jobin and Anna are staying..). Because it was exposed to London's industrial pollution for over a century, much of its original detail has been eroded, giving it the weathered, textured appearance seen in your photo.

It remains a unique connection between the military history of the Royal Arsenal and the Napoleonic Wars in Egypt.

The statue is estimated to be between 1,700 and 2,000 years old. While there isn't a precise "birthday" carved into the stone, historians and archaeologists have narrowed down its age based on its style and origin:

 * The Estimated Era: It is classified as "Late Roman," typically dating it to the 1st to 3rd Century CE.

 * The Most Specific Dating: Research conducted by specialists from the British Museum suggests it likely dates toward the later end of that spectrum, possibly the early 3rd Century.

 * Historical Context: If the theory that it depicts a "Roman Barbarian" (specifically a captive) is correct, it was likely part of a grand monument or public building in Alexandria, Egypt, built to celebrate Roman military victories during the height of the Empire.

Why is it so hard to date exactly?

 * Weathering: As you likely noticed when seeing it, the statue is heavily eroded. It spent over 150 years standing outside in Woolwich during the height of London's industrial "Great Smog" era. The acidic pollution ate away at the fine details that would normally help art historians pin down a more exact decade.

 * Mistaken Identity: For a long time, it was called "Deus Lunus" because people thought it was a moon god. We now know it's a secular figure (a prisoner/ barbarian), but shifting that historical classification changed how experts look at its "age" relative to other Roman artworks.

In short, when you stand in front of it, you are looking at stone that was carved roughly 1,800 years ago in North Africa. It is indeed a sad thought that it is facing the vagaries of British weather for over 225 years now, staying in the open.

What is happening in Iran ?

When the Islamists overthrew Shah Reza Pehlavi and took power in 1970, the Iranians fell to religious radicalism. One of my colleagues in the Uty is an Iranian Professor. 34,000 people have become part of history including 200 children over the past one year and she dare not return to Iran, because she fears she will also be part of history. Iranians want the Islamist radicals out of power. 

This will be the war to liberate Iran of Islamists. Iranians have rich cultural heritage and are a proud group of people. 

Iran presently has inflation of 45% and food inflation of 70%, 1.5 million Iranian Rial is a US dollar and GDP grew -2.5% (negative) last year. People are fed up of the Islamists. 🫢🫢🤔