Professor Quits IIT Bombay to Fight Climate Change

Mumbai 18 September 2025 : In a rare and revolutionary move, renowned solar scientist and climate crusader Professor Chetan Singh Solanki, often called India’s “Solar Man” and “Solar Gandhi”, has announced his resignation from IIT Bombay to dedicate himself fully to saving humanity from the grave crisis of climate change.

Professor Solanki has spent over two decades at IIT Bombay, playing a pioneering role in solar energy education and research – writing several books on solar, securing patents, creating online courses and setting up India’s largest research centre on solar energy.

Coming from a simple farmer family from a small non-descript village in Madhya Pradesh, he did a master’s degree from IIT Bombay, did a PhD on solar energy in Europe, and returned to India in 2004 to serve his country. Gradually he became one of India’s leading voices on the subject of solar energy.

In the year 2020, Prof. Solanki started the Energy Swaraj Yatra through a special solar bus to bring awareness about the serious issue of climate change and to make common citizens, educational institutions and government machinery take action in the right direction. This yatra will conclude in Dec. 2030. During this journey, he also took a pledge not to go home for 11 years and made his solar bus his home. In the last five years, Prof. Solanki has traveled 68000 km across the country by staying in the solar bus and gave more than 1650 lectures on the subject of climate change. In his journey, he also understood the inaction of common people and institutions towards climate change and created many programs for solutions like energy literacy, Indore Climate Mission, etc.

But now, he says, awareness is not enough – we need action. He said that “the limit of 2 degrees Celsius global warming – beyond which climate change will become irreversible – is only 20 to 25 years away. If we cross this limit of global warming, the very existence of human life will be in danger. And our life will not only become difficult but also expensive to live everyday.

Prof. Solanki says that “we are living in a now or never type of situation. We are living in a climate emergency and the world is fast asleep”.

To solve this, Prof. Solanki asks everyone a simple question: “When our income is limited, our expenses are also limited. Similarly, when the size of the earth is limited, all its resources like minerals, soil are limited – then how come the number of our buildings, vehicles and clothes is constantly increasing?” He believes that to stop climate change, we all have to adopt the mantra of “Finite Earth – Finite Consumption”, which is the basic mantra of The Finite Earth Movement started by him. Prof. Solanki’s photo of torn socks and his “I can afford, but nature cannot” is an example of this basic mantra.

Announcing his resignation from IIT Bombay, he said: “I chose purpose over prestige because we are now living in a climate emergency, which is becoming a threat to human existence on the planet”.

Prof. Solanki has started the Finite Earth Movement (FEM), which is based on the simple truth that “on a finite planet, unlimited consumption is not possible.” His goal is to engage about one billion people in climate action in just the next three years through FEM. “My resignation is not just a career change, but a call to duty,” he said. “IIT Bombay gave me prestige, but now FEM is the seed of purpose.”

23 October 2025 will be Prof. Solanki’s last working day at IIT Bombay. He called on citizens, institutions and governments across the world to join the Finite Earth Movement and make finite living not just a national but an international mission, as climate change is a problem of entire humanity.

Prof. Chetan Singh Solanki is a climate action leader, innovator, and educator who has dedicated his life to tackling the climate crisis through lifestyle change and energy independence. He has recently resigned from IIT Bombay in 2025 for his passion for Climate Correction. He has been living and travelling in a solar-powered bus since November 2020 on the 11-year Energy Swaraj Yatra, 100% solar-powered journey across India that will continue until 2030. Though deeply rooted in family life, he has pledged not to return home during this entire period, devoting every single day to the cause of climate correction.

The Yatra, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s principles, is both a living laboratory and a mass outreach platform. As it approaches its fifth year, he has already covered 70,000 km, delivered over 1650+ talks on climate action, directly engaged over 4,10,000 people, and made more than 2 million individuals energy literate. Through this outreach, Prof. Solanki has not only spread knowledge but also sparked transformation in people’s thought processes toward climate action and sustainability, inspiring them to embrace mindful consumption and energy independence.

From this deep experience and engagement emerged the Finite Earth Movement (FEM) in 2025 — a vision to transform finite living into a global mass movement by mobilizing 1 billion individuals worldwide for climate action by 2027. FEM is rooted in a simple truth: on a finite planet, consumption itself must be finite. To translate awareness into action, FEM offers a structured Climate Action Framework with practical tools such as the Consumption Literacy, TUPEE Climate Habits, and the AMG Decision Filter — guiding people to adopt daily mindful choices and measurable lifestyle change.

Widely known as the ‘Solar Man of India’ and hailed as ‘Solar Gandhi’ for his Gandhian way of living and message of renewable self-reliance, Prof. Solanki has combined vision with action. At IIT Bombay, he led pioneering initiatives such as the National Centre for Photovoltaic Research and Education (NCPRE) and the landmark SoULS (Solar Urja through Localization for Sustainability) project, through which 10,000 rural women were trained and employed in solar product assembly, reaching 7.5 million families with clean lighting solutions. The Govt. of Madhya Pradesh appointed him as its Brand Ambassador for Solar Energy, and his work has been honoured with awards such as IEEE’s global grand prize of US$100,000, the Prime Minister’s Innovation Award, ONGC’s Solar Chulha Challenge, three Guinness World Records, national science and technology awards, and accolades including ‘Guardian of Humanity,’ ‘Outstanding Green Activist,’ and ‘Hero of the Environment.’ He has also been named among LinkedIn’s Top 15 Must-Follow Thought Leaders.

Prof. Solanki’s voice has resonated across the world. He was invited to the United Nations in Geneva to present the Energy Swaraj Model on a global stage. In 2019, he carried his mission across 30 countries, spreading the message of solar energy worldwide. A TED Speaker and sought-after thought leader, he has addressed leading corporations including Google, Intel, TCS, Shell, and BlackRock. His academic and policy contributions are equally profound: he chaired CBSE and AICTE committees for solar curriculum development, served as a member of the National Focus Group on Environmental Education under NEP, contributed to national committees such as NAAC and NIRF, authored 8 books, and published over 100 international research papers, alongside 4 US patents. “Will Humanity Survive or Thrive by 2100 : Our Encounter With Dark Energies” is going to be published by Penguin.

Today, through the Finite Earth Movement, Prof. Solanki calls upon every citizen to be a torchbearer of climate correction by practicing finite living because his message is simple yet profound: ‘I can afford, but nature cannot.’ Climate correction, he believes, cannot wait for policies or technologies — it begins with the individual. His appeal is to act now, so that we may ‘leave behind a livable planet for future generations’.