Research area: Climate Policy
Imagining a different, better future
Emissions: World has four times the work or one-third of the time
Summary
A decade of insufficient political action on climate change means that nations must now do four times the work — or do the same in one-third of the time — to comply with the climate pact they made in Paris. The authors’ conclusions are based on a synthesis of all ten editions of the Emissions Gap Report produced by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Each year for the past ten years, this report has examined the difference (the ‘gap’) between what countries have pledged to do individually to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, and what they need to do collectively to meet agreed temperature goals. The co-authors find that the required emissions cuts from 2020 to 2030 are now more than 7% per year on average for the 1.5 °C temperature limit set in Paris and 3% for 2°C. Had serious climate action begun in 2010, the cuts required to meet the emissions levels for 2 °C would have been 2% per year, on average. The time window for halving global emissions has also narrowed: today it is 10 years for 1.5 °C and 25 years for 2°C; it would have been 30 years in 2010. Some countries, regions, cities and businesses have promised or implemented urgently needed climate action, however. For example, 76 countries or regions and 14 subnational regions or states have set or even implemented net-zero emissions goals. Closing the gap will require scaling up these few success stories and mirroring them with progress in every sector.
Read moreBracing for the storm
The Ecological Costs of Doing Business: Environment, Energy and Climate Change
Summary
What perspective did the BJP government bring to the link between environment, energy and climate change on the one hand and development on the other, and what consequent actions has it taken? In this essay published in ‘Re-forming India: The Nation Today’, Penguin India, the authors assess the government’s actions in areas of environment, energy and climate change with a view to interpreting its track record.
Focusing less on environmental outcomes and more on the changes in direction introduced by the government, Dubash and Ghosh explore four themes. First, they examine the government’s focus on the ‘cost of doing business’ and ask whether reducing this cost has come at an environmental price. Second, they analyse cases in which an environment and energy agenda was driven by political imperatives, such as around energy access or Ganga rejuvenation. Third, they explore whether and how the government has addressed the emergent big picture environment and energy questions that will shape India’s future, beyond immediate regulatory changes. Finally, they examine its diplomacy in the areas of climate change and energy, and reflect on what the accumulated record implies in terms of India’s environmental governance.
India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development
Introduction
As science is increasingly making clear, the problem of climate change poses an existential challenge for humanity. For India, this challenge is compounded by immediate concerns of eradicating poverty and accelerating development, and complicated by its relatively limited role thus far in causing the problem. India in a Warming World explores this complex context for India’s engagement with climate change. But, in addition, it argues that India, like other countries, can no longer ignore the problem, because a pathway to development innocent of climate change is no longer available. Bringing together leading researchers, activists, and policymakers, this volume lays out the emergent debate on climate change in India. Collectively, these chapters deepen clarity on why India should engage with climate change and how it can best do so.
Read moreNational Climate Policies and Institutions
This chapter, published in ‘India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development’, Oxford University Press, sets the stage for a discussion on policies by reviewing the emergence of national policies and national institutions. This discussion starts with the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) and its various Missions. It discusses how Indian climate policy was frequently dictated by the pursuit of ‘co-benefits’ that bring both climate and development gains, and the emergence of a multiple objectives framing as a useful guide for policy formulation. This leads to a discussion of the formulation of India’s NDC for the Paris Agreement. Significantly, the chapter also covers the spread of climate institutions, which while weak and in their early stages, provide the spaces within which climate discussion is likely to be mainstreamed, if at all, in coming years.
Read moreIndia’s Evolving Climate Change Debate: From Diplomatic Insulation to Policy Integration
How is India engaging the climate change challenge? This introductory chapter in ‘India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate Change and Development’, Oxford University Press, explains the changing context for climate change debates in India, from one focused on diplomatic concerns of equity and responsibility for the problem, to one equally concerned with understanding its development implications. The chapter lays out the rationale for why the book examines climate change impacts, negotiations, politics, policies and integration across sectors, briefly discussing key themes. It ends with four overarching messages on the contours of the Indian climate debate.
Read moreMore priorities, more problems? Decision-making with multiple energy, development and climate objectives
Summary
The Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement pose new conceptual challenges for energy decision makers by compelling them to consider the implications of their choices for development and climate mitigation objectives. This is a nontrivial exercise as it requires pragmatic consideration of the interconnections between energy systems and their social and environmental contexts and working with a plurality of actors and values. There are an increasing number of indices, frameworks and academic studies that capture these interconnections, yet policy makers have relatively few ex-ante tools to pragmatically aid decision-making. This paper, based on a collation of 167 studies, reviews how multi-criteria decision approaches (MCDA) are used in energy policy decisions to explicitly consider multiple social and environmental objectives, and the conceptual usefulness of doing so. First, MCDA can be used to distil a finite set of objectives from those of a large number of actors. This process is often political and objectives identified are aligned with vested interests or institutional incentives. Second, MCDA can be used to build evidence that is both qualitative and quantitative in nature to capture the implications of energy choices across economic, environmental, social and political metrics. Third, MCDA can be used to explore synergies and trade-offs between energy, social and environmental objectives, and in turn, make explicit the political implications of choices for actors. The studies reviewed in this paper demonstrate that the use of MCDA is so far mainly academic and for problems in the Global North. We argue for a mainstreaming of such a multi-criteria and deliberative approaches for energy policy decisions in developing countries where trade-offs between energy, development and climate mitigation are more contentious while recognizing the data, capacity and transparency requirements of the process.
Read moreIndia and Climate Change: Evolving Ideas and Increasing Policy Engagement
Summary
India is a significant player in climate policy and politics. It has been vocal in international climate negotiations, but its role in these negotiations has changed over time. In an interactive relationship between domestic policy and international positions, India has increasingly become a testing ground for policies that internalize climate considerations into development. This article critically reviews the arc of climate policy and politics in India over time. It begins by examining changes in knowledge and ideas around climate change in India, particularly in the areas of ethics, climate impacts, India’s energy transition, linkages with sustainability, and sequestration. The next section examines changes in politics, policy, and governance at both international and national scales. The article argues that shifts in ideas and knowledge of impacts, costs, and benefits of climate action and shifts in the global context are reflected and refracted through discourses in India’s domestic and international policies.
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