India has ambitious targets to achieve net-zero emissions by 2070, meet 50% of its energy needs from non-fossil sources by 2030, and achieve 30% EV sales penetration for new vehicles by 2030. While significant progress has been made towards these goals, India still faces major challenges in reducing dependence on imported components. Strengthening domestic cleantech manufacturing therefore assumes critical importance in reducing vulnerability to external shocks, driving socioeconomic development, and establishing India as a green technology export hub, among other areas.

In this context, and with the aim of identifying what it would take to accelerate Atmanirbhar Bharat in cleantech manufacturing, Dalberg and the Council for International Economic Understanding (CIEU) co-hosted the Bharat Climate Forum 2025 on January 10, 2025, at the ITC Maurya Hotel, New Delhi. The Forum brought together over 300 participants, including policymakers, industry leaders, funders, researchers, and global allies across sectors. The event was marked by inspiring keynote speeches from 5 esteemed speakers, including the Honourable Ministers Piyush Goyal and Ashwini Vaishnaw, and featured 5 fireside chats, 7 panel discussions, and 9 technical roundtables, providing a platform for over 70 speakers to share insights and explore strategies for strengthening cleantech manufacturing in India.

The proceedings culminated in the signing of a landmark Memorandum of Understanding between Dalberg, CIEU, and ISA, and the launch of the Bharat Cleantech Manufacturing Platform in the presence of Honourable Union Minister Shri Piyush Goyal.

The Bharat Cleantech Manufacturing Platform aims to build on the success of the Forum by unifying key stakeholders across policy, industry, finance, and research sectors, positioning India as a global leader in cleantech manufacturing and fostering self-reliance as the cornerstone of its journey towards a Net-Zero and Viksit Bharat. The Platform’s immediate goals will focus on developing a detailed strategy and action plan to accelerate indigenization of manufacturing capacity, including identifying specific interventions under key pillars relevant to selected focus sectors, which would have the highest impact on driving indigenization.

The Bharat Climate Forum report highlights the current status, potential opportunities and challenges in the focus sectors for the Platform—solar energy, wind energy, green hydrogen, e-mobility, battery energy storage systems (BESS) and bio-energy. Along with sectoral insights, the report also focuses on cross-cutting themes such as cost-competitiveness, R&D and innovation, global partnerships, workforce and financing. The report also includes insights shared in the discussions from the forum to complement the insights from the sectoral and cross-cutting theme analysis to shape the initial thinking for the platform.

Since the Forum, the Government of India has also announced National Manufacturing Mission focused on cleantech in India at the Union Budget 2025, which furthers the ambition and goals of the Bharat Cleantech Manufacturing Platform.

Download the full report on the proceedings of the Bharat Climate Forum 2025 here: