In June 2020, the Uttar Pradesh government announced plans to convert five cities, Ayodhya, Mathura, Varanasi, Gorakhpur, and Prayagraj, into "solar cities" by 2024. This sits within a state RE target of 10,700 MW (against an estimated 22,300 MW potential), and lands at a moment when India as a whole is on track to meet its climate commitments, having built 83 GW of a 175 GW renewable energy target through the International Solar Alliance. While the initiative reflects the state's efforts to expand renewable energy and promote greener urban development, it also raises an important question: how can the transition to solar energy be made more inclusive, locally owned, and beneficial to diverse communities across Uttar Pradesh?

 

The five cities chosen are also central to UP's dominant religious identity, even though they are, in practice, home to centuries of shared, inter-religious, and inter-cultural life. Our engagement with local faith leaders during the 2020 Covid-19 response showed this tension can be resolved rather than avoided,leaders from different faith communities came together on a single platform to advocate for climate action, treating diversity as a source of solidarity rather than division. The solar transition is therefore not only a question of increasing renewable energy capacity, but also of ensuring that local communities, businesses, workers and different social groups can participate in and benefit from the emerging green economy. This creates an opportunity to explore how solarisation can support both environmental sustainability and a more inclusive model of development in Uttar Pradesh, one that extends the same recognition and investment to all of UP's identities, and builds the widest possible public base of support for a much larger solarising campaign across the state.