Vijay Rajak has an open-cast coal mine on his land in the Indian state of Jharkhand - but often has no electricity for 10 hours a day, amid coal shortages as increasingly brutal summer temperatures drive soaring demand for power.

In the face of climate change threats, India is rethinking its reliance on coal for 70% of its electricity, adding renewables such as solar and hydropower to its grid. But it is also stepping up coal mining and adding coal power plants to meet fast-rising demand for power, as millions face blackouts.

As in many places around the world, figuring out a swift but socially fair way to shift to greener energy - one that balances peoples' need for affordable power with the requirement to slash use of fossil fuels within the decade to prevent runaway climate disasters - remains a major challenge.

In Cameroon, the government is making an effort by slashing taxes on renewable power equipment and infrastructure, hoping to spur major solar investment in the sunny African nation as worsening drought hits hydropower supplies.

In coal giant Australia, where a fossil fuel-friendly conservative government lost elections this month, the new prime minister has set a new target of cutting the country's carbon emissions by 43% by 2030 - a move that would require a rollback of coal use.

But in making that shift, "the absolute single most important thing is to build new renewable generation before shutting the old coal power down," warns Joe Fontaine, an environmental scientist at Murdoch University in Perth.

In Peru, German judges and scientists last week toured an Andean lake swollen by increasingly rapid snowmelt, which is threatening to burst and destroy the downstream city of Huaraz.

A farmer and mountain guide has sued coal-dependent Germany's biggest electricity provider, RWE, for contributing to the threat, in a case that was accepted by a German court.

A decision against RWE could open the door to many more lawsuits against major climate polluters, analysts say, as legal challenges become an important tool to force emissions cuts and seek reparation for climate damage.

Also this week, don't miss a fascinating tale of how Republican-dominated Horry County, South Carolina, has drawn up its own flood risk maps, rather than rely on federal government maps, after worsening floods, fuelled by climate change, repeatedly tore through areas not marked as under threat.

"This is a pretty pro-development, red county that enacted some of the most sweeping flood reform regulations (in the) state of South Carolina, if not the East Coast," noted a professor whose research laid the groundwork for the change.

"If we could do this everywhere, I would recommend it," he said.

See you next week!

Laurie

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