Expert Available: Daphne Wysham on India’s power outage
World Bank played a role in India’s flawed energy infrastructure, says Wysham
**Available for Interviews: Daphne Wysham, Sustainable Energy and Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies**
Washington DC – As India continues to investigate the cause of the massive power outage that left about half of the country without power, expert Daphne Wysham of the Institute for Policy Studies points to the involvement of the World Bank in the development of India’s electrical grid. Wysham has been an outspoken critic of the Indian power infrastructure development led by the World Bank, and has done work on India’s energy industry. Wysham also spent much of her childhood in Ludhiana, India.
Wysham made the following comment about India’s power outage:
“One-tenth of the planet’s people — one-half of India’s population – lost power completely this week, with a blackout covering most of North India’s highly populated states. While corruption, a delayed monsoon, and equipment failure played a role in the problem, the World Bank also helped usher in a model of power sector privatization to India 15 years ago, with a focus on highly polluting coal and large hydro-electric dams, largely providing power to energy-intensive industries and wealthy, urban areas, while leaving vast swaths of the poor and rural population in the dark, displaced, or both. Ironically, one of the few regions in India that maintained power reliably during the blackouts was Jodhpur, where wind power kept the lights on.”
Daphne Wysham is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) and is the founder and co-director of the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network (SEEN). She has worked on research and advocacy at the intersection of climate change, human rights, fossil fuels, international finance, carbon markets and sustainable economies since 1996. SEEN’s pathbreaking research has resulted in shifts in public policy and investment at the national and international level. She is a frequent guest speaker on the concerns around carbon markets — and carbon offsets in particular — in generating meaningful greenhouse gas emissions reductions.
Wysham has played a leadership role on Capitol Hill, advising the Congressional Progressive Caucus on a progressive agenda for climate change. Her writings, commentary and analysis has appeared in national news publications and on radio and TV, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Grist, The Guardian, The Financial Times, and on Al Jazeera, Democracy Now!, MSNBC, BBC, NPR, and Marketplace, among others. From 2003 to May of 2011, she hosted Earthbeat Radio and TV.