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Is India Ready for a Warming World?

19 March 2025

How Heat Resilience Measures Are Being Implemented for 11% of India’s Urban Population in Some of Its Most At-Risk Cities

Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti, Alexandra Kassinis, Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, Escandita Tewari, Navroz K. Dubash

Heatwaves are coming. Can India handle it?

The Indian Express | 25 March 2025

India’s extreme heat actions focus on survival today. We need to start preparing for the deadly climate extremes of tomorrow.

Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti

Why action on extreme heat in Indian cities is falling short

Carbon Brief | 19 March 2025

Adapting to increasing extreme heat will be central to urban living for decades to come. A late start to these efforts will increase pressure on the state in the future and risks exposing citizens to harms from warming that could be avoided

Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti et al

Thirty and Still Dirty: Why Do Delhi’s Roads Remain So Polluted?

20 February 2025

This blog looks at some of the historical, emergent challenges behind vehicular emissions and explores how the city can be redesigned to serve its people and not its vehicles.

Arunesh Karkun & Nazneen

Annual Report 2023-24: Building the Foundations for a Sustainable Future

Our team, highlights from the launch, our work across the four research areas, academic and policy engagements, and more

Navigating pathways to a sustainable future by

Analysing issues at the frontier of addressing climate change, managing the energy transition, and limiting environmental threats in India and globally

Informing policymakers, stakeholders, and the public about key policy and governance levers, and their implications

Accelerating the transition to an environmentally and socially sustainable future by enabling strategic action for systemic change

Our events

Upcoming

Book Discussion |‘More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy’

A discussion of the book, ‘More and More and More: An All-Consuming History of Energy’ by the author Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a historian of science, technology and the environment, a researcher at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and a professor at the Ecole des Ponts et Chaussées, with Elizabeth Chatterjee, Assistant Professor of Environmental History at the University of Chicago, and Ashwini K Swain, Fellow, SFC.

Monday

7 April, 2025

5:00 pm

Past Event

Climate Finance at COP 29: What New, Collective, Quantified Ambition?

A discussion on the state of play on climate finance negotiations going into COP 29, with Joe Thwaites (NRDC), Jonathan Beynon (CGD), and Avantika Goswami (CSE). Moderated by Aman Srivastava, Fellow, SFC

Past Event

Launch Event: Introducing the Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC)

Featuring opening remarks by N.K. Singh, Chair, 15th Finance Commission and a panel discussion on ‘Building the foundations for a sustainable future’.

Public engagement

IN THE NEWS

Heat action crumbles when it needs cross-department coordination, says report

Mongabay India | 27 March 2025

“The study on heat action in cities facing a future of heat found that long-term action to mitigate heat impacts crumbled when they required coordination between different departments”. Our new report ‘Is India Ready for a Warming World? How Heat Resilience Measures Are Being Implemented for 11% of India’s Urban Population in Some of Its Most At-Risk Cities’ on heat actions finds that current strategies focus on “reactive measures,” lacks the multi-sectoral support needed for lasting solutions, covered in Mongabay India.

SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS

Climate change – Opportunities and tradeoffs for India 2047 development goals

19 March 2025

At the panel discussion, organised by The Fletcher School, Tufts University Easwaran Narassimhan, was moderator, alongwith Aman Srivastava, Aman Malik (CEEW) and Suranjali Tandon (NIPFP) as panelists. The discussion emphasised the risks of a business-as-usual climate approach, the need for integrated climate-development strategies, targeted R&D, green industrial policy, financial system alignment, and institutional coherence to ensure long-term resilience, competitiveness, and strategic positioning in India’s low-carbon transition.

IN THE NEWS

देश मे गर्मी मे तपने वाले शहर ही बचाव के प्रति लापरवाह

Dainik Jagran | 24 March 2025

एसएफसी की नई रिपोर्ट के अनुसार, भारत के नौ प्रमुख शहर बढ़ती भीषण गर्मी से निपटने में कमजोर साबित हो रहे हैं। अल्पकालिक उपाय जैसे पानी की उपलब्धता और कार्य समय में बदलाव किए जाते हैं, लेकिन दीर्घकालिक समाधान या तो नदारद हैं या बेहद कमजोर हैं। गर्मी के प्रति सबसे संवेदनशील आबादी के लिए ठंडक सुनिश्चित करने, शहरी नियोजन में सुधार और बिजली आपूर्ति को मजबूत करने जैसे कदमों की भारी कमी है। सरकारी नीतियों और संस्थागत तालमेल की कमजोरियों के कारण दीर्घकालिक समाधान लागू नहीं हो पा रहे, जिससे भविष्य में मौतों और आर्थिक क्षति की आशंका बढ़ रही है। रिपोर्ट में सुझाव दिया गया है कि शहरों को तत्काल प्रभावी योजनाओं पर काम करना चाहिए। इस रिपोर्ट को दैनिक जागरण ने कवर किया है।