Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

“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 V Pillai, Tamanna Dalal, Ishan Kukreti, Alexandra Kassinis, Lucas Vargas Zeppetello, Escandita Tewari, and Navroz Dubash write in Carbon Brief article about our new report that assesses India’s readiness for extreme heat.

Reports

Adaptation and Resilience

This report assesses India’s readiness for the extreme heat of a +1.5 degree world. It examines the implementation of extreme heat policies in 9 major Indian cities — Bengaluru, Delhi, Faridabad, Gwalior, Kota, Ludhiana, Meerut, Mumbai, and Surat — which are among the most at risk from future heat (as per our climate models), collectively covering over 11% of India’s urban population. This is the first systematic multi-city analysis of heat action implementation in India.

Journal articles

Climate Policy

Climate change considerations are increasingly being internalised, or domesticated in India's development decision-making. The paper examines how political narratives linking climate change and development have emerged over the past decade, explores top-down approaches to climate policy, discusses key sectoral shifts and economy-wide approaches, and ends with a discussion of what mainstreaming climate change may mean for the Indian state. It argues for taking seriously the linkage between climate change and development, but in a way that engages with their complex linkages. The article is part of the EPW's special issue 'Review of Environment and Development' edited by Sharachchandra Lele and Geetanjoy Sahu.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Climate Policy

Energy Transitions

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

Climate Policy

While it may be in the interests of developing countries to do development differently for climate reasons, the technological fact of falling renewable energy prices by no means imply a post-equity climate politics. But with weak prospects for a grand global bargain around climate and development, we may be in for messy country-by-country approaches to low-carbon development transitions.

Opinions

Climate Policy

The Ranjitsinh ruling of the Supreme Court is potentially far-reaching but its limited view of action on climate change risks causing an inadequate framing of policy. It is legislation that is built on a bottom-up approach that can act on the Court’s calls for balance across multiple objectives.

Books and book chapters

Climate Policy

Transforming towards a low-carbon, climate-resilient society will require reimagining existing governance arrangements. This chapter in 'The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Natural Resources Law in India' documents how India’s policies, institutions, and legal structures have changed in response to climate change.

Opinions

Climate Policy

Authors lay out an institutional vision for India’s climate law - knowledge-based ‘low-carbon development commission’; ‘climate cabinet’ to drive strategy; executive coordination body; and mechanisms for federal engagement.

Opinions

Climate Policy

Because India is still developing, is highly vulnerable, and yet to build much of its infrastructure, what the country needs is a law that enables progress toward both low-carbon and climate resilient development.