SFC Perspectives Building systems that allow India to adapt to multiple and increasingly severe climate impacts
India’s development hinges on managing a range of intensifying climate impacts: extreme heat, an eroding coastline, melting glaciers, and urban flooding, among others. These threats will impose upon the lives of an already vulnerable population by diminishing their incomes, increasing healthcare costs, and stifling intergenerational progress. We aim to help forestall these effects by improving governance systems that create and implement climate adaptation policies.
Our current research seeks to improve resilience to extreme heat and coastal erosion by identifying gaps in policy structures and local implementation. We work with sub-national partners to improve policy implementation. We study under-researched systemic levers such as how India’s federal structure can be improved to respond to growing climate impacts, integrating locally-relevant climate science into decision-making processes, and assessing the long-term social consequences of increasingly severe climate events.
Our publications
This also includes publications by SFC team members in their past capacities.
Heatwaves are coming. Can India handle it?
Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti
The Indian Express | 25 March 2025
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Why action on extreme heat in Indian cities is falling short
Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti et al
Carbon Brief | 19 March 2025
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Is India Ready for a Warming World? How Heat Resilience Measures Are Being Implemented for 11% of India’s Urban Population …
Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, et al.
19 March 2025
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Opinions
Adaptation and Resilience
Climate Policy
Energy Transitions
Now for a green Bharat abhiyaan
Navroz K Dubash
India Today | 7 January 2025
Navroz K Dubash, writing on climate change in India Today’s ‘India @ 2025’ special issue, argues for keeping the pressure on developed countries for emissions reductions and finance but also suggests three key domestic priorities for India: Enhance climate resilience in cities/coasts, and plan for adaptation, e.g, in agriculture and water; Build a low carbon economy that creates jobs; Reform governance structures and the legal framework to address climate governance challenges.
Opinions
Adaptation and Resilience
Extreme heat in India needs funds to fix
Tamanna Dalal
India Development Review | 26 June 2024
The recent spate of deadly heatwaves highlights the need for long-term systemic solutions, which come with a hefty price tag. Here’s how India can foot the bill.
Opinions
Adaptation and Resilience
Environmental Governance and Policy
Unified action needed to tackle extreme heat and air pollution
Annanya Mahajan and Tamanna Dalal
Mongabay | 25 June 2024
The combined impact of air pollution and heatwaves can be far more severe than individual impacts, as various reactions between heat and gases in the air can affect cardiovascular, respiratory and immune systems. Adopting unified protective health measures against both issues is crucial.
Books and book chapters
Adaptation and Resilience
Environmental Governance and Policy
Synergistic Impact of Air Pollution and Heat on Health and Economy in India
Abinaya Sekar, Rajat Sharma and Annanya Mahajan
Springer | 1 May 2024
The chapter, published in the book ‘The Climate-Health-Sustainability Nexus: Understanding the Interconnected Impact on Populations and the Environment’ (Springer), examines the combined influence of heat and air pollution their implications for global health and the economy.
Opinions
Adaptation and Resilience
Opinion: India is on the climate crisis front line. So why isn’t that an election issue?
Aditya Valiathan Pillai
CNN Opinion | 20 April 2024
Climate won’t be a major issue in India’s upcoming six-week-long national election, unlike in Australia, the UK, and US, where elections can hinge on climate policy positions. But it will shape Indian elections in definitive but under-the-radar ways.
SFC Perspectives
Adaptation and Resilience
Climate Policy
Energy Transitions
Environmental Governance and Policy
SFC Perspectives on Adaptation and Resilience, Climate Policy, Energy Transitions, and Environmental Governance and Policy
SFC
SFC | 19 March 2024
SFC Perspectives are intended to stimulate discussion by providing an overview of key issues and avenues for action to inform India’s sustainable development trajectory.
SFC Perspectives
Adaptation and Resilience
Perspectives on Adaptation and Resilience: Building systems that allow India to adapt to climate impacts
Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Tamanna Dalal
SFC | 18 March 2024
The scale and complexity of the climate challenge merits serious consideration of systemic change, and a re-examination of what is needed for economy and society to thrive in an era of frequent, and often ravaging, climate impacts.
Journal articles
Adaptation and Resilience
Environmental Governance and Policy
Impact of heatwaves on all-cause mortality in India: A comprehensive multi-city study
Jeroen de Bont, Amruta Nori-Sarma et al.
Environment International | 22 February 2024
The authors found strong evidence of heatwave impacts on daily mortality. Longer and more intense heatwaves were linked to an increased mortality risk, however, resulted in a lower burden of heatwave-related deaths.
Opinions
Adaptation and Resilience
Himalayas: How Pattern Of Natural Disasters Leaves Locals In Cycle Of Construction And Destruction
Chetan Mahajan and Annanya Mahajan
Outlook | 11 September 2023
There is a pattern of natural disasters in the Himalayas, which leaves the local population caught in a cycle of construction and destruction.
