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• Analyzes South Asia's energy trilemma balancing energy access, security and sustainability. • Focuses on four major regional countries: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. • Identifies major challenges as lack of energy access, unreliable gird, and unaffordable prices. • Explores the prospects of renewable energy as the key toward a sustainable energy transition. • Presents stakeholder perspectives on crucial dynamics of energy transition. To address the faced challenges – i.e. rapidly growing energy needs, depleting fossil fuel reserves, surging energy prices, risks to security of supplies, and climate change – the World is targeting a sustainable energy transition. This energy transition is primarily propelled by a global decarbonization drive. South Asia, a developing region housing over 23% of the global population, faces the additional challenge of serious energy deprivation. The subject of energy transition has not been explored in the South Asian context in terms of drivers, challenges, and prospects. This paper investigates the prospects of sustainable energy transition in South Asia in terms of resources, consumption trends, and challenges encountered by countries in the region, particularly India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. It also examines the sustainable and renewable energy options for the region. An original stakeholder survey provides salient behavioral insights into awareness, attitudes and opinions shaping societal response to energy transition. The findings of the study highlight the serious energy security issues faced by the region in terms of lack of access, inconsistent supplies, unreliable grids, and high energy prices. Renewables like solar energy, wind power, and hydropower have the potential to propel regional countries to energy and environmental sustainability. "Lack of consistent policies and regulations", "lack of political will" and "lack of investment" are found to be the three most important challenges to the energy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Without a shift to renewable energy sources, climate change will have adverse effects on many terrestrial and aquatic species. On the other hand, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy will have different effects on wildlife, some negative. To protect biota, while navigating the complexities surrounding the transition to renewable energy, will require sharing knowledge between energy experts and wildlife experts, as well as policy makers and resource managers. This special issue is intended to advance the conversation. Interactions between renewable energy facilities and fauna are complex. Each source of renewable energy has its own conservation concerns, and each presents its own set of opportunities for mitigation; Other concerns and mitigations are shared. In this overview, we review climate risks to biota, clarify the complementarities among renewables for the conservation community, and summarize research on energy effects on biota for the energy community. The papers invited for this special issue address fossil (coal, oil, natural gas) and renewable energy (terrestrial biomass energy, hydropower, marine-hydrokinetic energy, wind energy, solar energy) and affected fauna. We hope that the results of these studies, and others like them, set us on a path toward low-carbon energy systems that provide society with energy while protecting future biodiversity. [Display omitted] • Without a shift to renewable energy, climate change will have adverse effects on many terrestrial and aquatic species. • On the other hand, renewable energy sources have their own conservation concerns. • To set the stage for the special issue, we review growth projections and describe complementarities among renewables. • We summarize the conservation concerns and mitigations for each renewable energy source presented in special issue papers. • This special issue seeks to illuminate paths that provide society with energy while protecting future biodiversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The outcome of COP15, the conference on climate change in Copenhagen, was the Copenhagen Accord which was recognised by the 193 countries that attended. The Accord set no compulsory limits on carbon emissions, and none of the countries that introduced it – USA, China, India [with Brazil and South Africa] – has signed the Annexe to the Kyoto Agreement, committing them to limit their emissions. Climate change is only of secondary importance to them compared with eradicating poverty. Nevertheless three of these countries are in the lead currently for installing renewables, far ahead of most of those [only 37 out of 187 countries world-wide] who are committed to limiting their emissions. This paper explains why. The main function of renewable energy is to save fuel, thereby reducing energy imports and maintaining security of energy supplies without the need to fight world wars over them. Also, being capital intensive with all the money paid up-front, renewables avoid the price fluctuations that bedevil the oil and other fossil fuel industries. As capacity is doubling every 3 years, renewables prices will come down with savings of scale, so wind power in particular will soon be the cheapest form of power. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]