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1. How Is India Adapting to Heatwaves?: An Assessment of Heat Action Plans With Insights for Transformative Climate Action

Author:
Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Tamanna Dalal
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
What are heat action plans (HAPs)? HAPs are India’s primary policy response to economically damaging and life threatening heatwaves. They prescribe a variety of preparatory activities, disaster responses, and post-heatwave response measures across state, district, and city government departments to decrease the impact of heatwaves. Our assessment of Indian HAPs In this report, we conduct what is, to our knowledge, the first critical review of heat action plans in India. We analyse 37 heat action plans at the city (9), district (13) and state (15) levels across 18 states and identify several opportunities to strengthen Indian HAPs. We also document an encouragingly wide range of solutions (covering 62 distinct intervention types) prescribed across these HAPs, from promoting green roofs to state-wide school awareness programs (see the interactive figure below). This lays out a consolidated toolbox of options for the Indian HAP designer and policymaker.
Topic:
Climate Change, Public Policy, Public Health, and Heat Waves
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

2. Finding the Finance: A guide to identifying Centrally Sponsored Schemes to fund heat resilience solutions

Author:
Shreya Shekhar, Tamanna Dalal, Sidharth Santhosh, Aditya Valiathan Pillai, and Bhargav Krishna
Publication Date:
12-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
This analysis attempts to address a pressing problem at the heart of India’s plans to combat extreme heat: finance. Indian Heat Action Plans (HAPs) contain a welcome diversity of adaptation solutions spanning many sectors, but generally fail to identify viable sources of public and private finance to implement these solutions. In a previous study published in March 2023, we found that only two of the 37 state, district and city heat action plans reviewed had cited specific sources of finance for at least some of their interventions. In this analysis, we map heat-resilience solutions proposed across 37 Indian HAPs against interventions in India’s Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSSs), Central-Sector Schemes (CSs), and an Act, all implemented by states with significant financial support from the Union government. These cover areas as diverse as the creation of low-cost affordable housing, the construction of artificial water bodies, urban greening, and changing the way settlements are built, among others. CSSs carry a lot of financial firepower and if creatively utilised, could help solve some of India’s climate finance shortfalls. In Financial Year 2023-2024 (FY 2023-24), CSSs were allocated ₹ 4,76,104.59 crores or 10.57% of the total Union budget (₹ 45,03,097 crores). We reviewed a total of 72 schemes which includes 67 CSSs, one CS, one Act and three national missions/action plans related to heat action and with budgetary allocations for FY 2023-24. We found that a quarter (18 schemes) contained interventions that directly correspond to heat resilience solutions identified in the HAPs. Overall, these 18 schemes (16 CSSs, an Act and a CS) could potentially support the implementation of 16 different types of heat solutions.
Topic:
Climate Change, Cities, Resilience, and Heat
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

3. Unlocking Climate Action in Indian Federalism

Author:
Aditya Valiathan Pillai, Navroz K. Dubash, and Parth Bhatia
Publication Date:
07-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
India’s highly centralized federal structure sits uneasily with the nature of the climate problem. While financial and bureaucratic capacities are concentrated in the centre, the locus of climate decisions lies largely in the states because they steer energy choices and respond to climate impacts. To unlock state action, the roles and capacities of the centre and states must be reimagined in the age of the climate crisis. This brief lays out the contours of an institutional redesign. We attempt to strike a delicate balance between flexibility, essential to innovative and opportunistic state actions, and the structure necessary for a coherent national policy trajectory. Specifically, we call for a specific focus on increasing specialized capacity to deal with climate change; coordination mechanisms; and financial incentives to motivate the states.
Topic:
Climate Change, Institutions, Federalism, and Coordination
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

4. Compensatory climate governance in Indian federalism

Author:
Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Navroz K. Dubash
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Centre for Policy Research, India
Abstract:
It is on the precarious and ever-shifting terrain of Indian federalism that a modern edifice of climate governance must be built. Where is the firm ground? Are there enduring characteristics of centre-state relations that let us arrive at a relatively stable description of Indian climate governance? In this working paper, we arrive at a synthetic account of the constant forces shaping climate governance in India’s federal architecture, building on descriptions of environmental federalism and state actions in climate policy. We argue that the highly asymmetric nature of Indian federalism — a federal government holds the reins of state finances and constitutes the bulk of planning and bureaucratic capacity — makes compensatory relations between centre and states inescapable in climate governance. Emergent practices have involved the use of institutional channels of fiscal transfer and federally mandated planning processes to help catalyse climate activity across India’s states. States have taken fragments of the national agenda and adapted them to local political contexts that are hitherto innocent of ‘climate’ politics phrased as such. They play the role of marrying broader mitigation and adaptation concerns to local development. In the process, they contribute to the compensatory dynamic by creating a stream of policy ideas that then come to define the national response through channels of federal diffusion.
Topic:
Climate Change, Governance, and Federalism
Political Geography:
South Asia and India