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Forests help mitigate the impacts of climate change, provide economic benefits for the country, and meet specific facets of India’s sustainable development goals. It is essential, therefore, to revisit India’s forest governance and evaluate the country’s efforts at forest restoration and conservation. This brief examines the current state of India’s forests, explores the effectiveness of forest restoration and conservation measures, and r

The US Navy has already developed a generic "Road Map" against climate change while we are yet to assess the impact of such changes, let alone formulate doctrinal responses. Let us not get caught napping.

Britain's former Chief Scientific Advisor and Head of the Government Office of Science, Sir David King, has said that both India and China should take a leadership role at the global platform for Climate Change.

Worsening climate change will have impacts on global politics, creating new vulnerabilities as well as opportunities. India, given its emerging power status and high vulnerability to climate impacts, holds a key position in global climate action. This brief looks at the ways in which India has used climate policies to gain leverage. India has sought to incorporate the geostrategic uses of climate change into a wider shift in its foreign policy, i

Absence of a national climate change adaptation strategy is hampering India's climate change mitigation efforts, opined experts and stakeholders while speaking at a seminar on 'Supporting Climate Resilient Development in India' in Kolkata on April 23.

For Lima and Paris climate change negotiations to succeed in achieving consensus, the issue of equitable response to the climate crisis must be creatively reimagined. And, to negotiate action on climate change despite many challenges, India should promote a more fine-tuned form of differentiated responsibility -- not just between countries, but within them as well.

India has a role to play in global climate diplomacy, with its large population, fast-growing economy, and vulnerabilities to the consequences of climate change. Utilising a review of existing literature, this brief evaluates the country’s involvement in international climate forums in the past decade, its negotiation strategies and policy coherence, and their effectiveness. It finds that India’s strategy for climate diplomacy has aimed for a

Energy transitions in developing economies like India are complex processes involving substantial financial and technological resources as well as appropriate innovation. These transitions are central to the climate debate, where emphasis is placed on increasing the share of renewables in the energy mix to mitigate the adverse impacts of climate change. This paper examines the historical attributes of energy transition and finds various critical

The 15th Conference of Parties (CoP 15) on Climate Change is scheduled to begin on December 7, 2009 in Copenhagen and continue till December 18, 2009.....more

Climate change and economic development are emotive subjects that are closely related: yet one is caused by the other. People’s lives are increasingly getting affected by the negative side-effects of climate change, particularly in developing countries which, at the same time, face enormous challenges to their aspirations for economic growth. Leading scientists agree that global warming is a reality and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are requir

The first universal, legally binding global climate accord signed at the 21st session of the Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris in 2015 committed to long-term goals for “holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.” However, as world leaders prepare for the Facilitative Dialogue (FD) ahead o

In recent years, India’s coastal regions have become more vulnerable to multiple risks related to climate change. Intense and more frequent cyclones such as the recent Fani, Gaja and Hudhud as well as severe floods have caused massive devastation to the country’s coastal states. While efficient disaster preparedness in many of these states has helped save many lives, there remain significant challenges in rebuilding damaged infrastructure and

India is among the countries in the world that are most vulnerable to the consequences of global warming. While there are notable efforts for both mitigation and adaptation, these have failed to consider issues of gender equity even as evidence shows that women and girls bear the disproportionate burden of climate change. This is a gap that needs to be bridged, given the complex interlinkages between climate and gender that encompass livelihoods,

The Observer Research Foundation organized a round table discussion on Climate Change on August 26, 2009 at its New Delhi campus. The theme speaker was Mr. Owen Jenkins, Counsellor for Climate Change and Energy, British High Commission and the DFID.

Delhi’s positions on these issues reflect its world view. But domestic economic and political challenges remain.

The gap between India and China in this regard is quite big. So it makes sense for India not to make any peaking commitment until it meets the backlog of providing basic energy needs to the majority of the poor

Given the present leadership impasse, the world would be keenly following India’s role on climate action in key upcoming forums such as the G20 and COP23. As China looks for a global partner to leverage its influence at the international stage, India is poised to utilize this potential opportunity and fill the leadership void in global climate change governance.

Mr. Thomas Haahr, First Secretary, Climate Change, Royal Danish Embassy outlined deep cuts in emissions of industrialised countries, financial support for developing countries, enhanced mitigation action by developing countries and adapting to the impact of climate change as the key challenges that would have to be addressed in Copenhagen

A frustrating part about the Kerala floods is that the loss of life and economic devastation could have been prevented.

India, China and the US share a similar perspective on balancing economic interests with climate-action, seeking a pragmatic approach to combat climate change through plausible self-determined contributions that are cognizant of national interests, says former Union Environment Secretary N R Krishnan.

This paper proposes a framework for defining risk metrics to capture climate resilience in infrastructure assets. It first outlines the risks that infrastructure is exposed to under a future of climate change, before summarising some of the current approaches used by large investment organisations to measure the resilience of this infrastructure. Finally, the paper proposes a method to develop a framework for risk metrics that build on these appr

The international community has been engaged in negotiations around climate finance for three decades now, and working definitions continue to assign the role of funder to advanced economies, and that of recipient, to emerging ones. This brief makes a case for expanding such narrow definitions. It calls on countries such as India to re-imagine not only the idea of climate finance but also the mechanisms of raising funds and the channels f

The 2024 advisory opinion issued by the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), recognising GHG emissions as marine pollution, marks a pivotal intersection in maritime and climate governance. The opinion, while non-binding, establishes legal obligations for states to mitigate climate-induced marine impacts, including acidification, warming, and sea-level rise. It emphasises due diligence, transboundary impact assessments, and adher

The Observer Research Foundation (ORF), India and the Stanley Foundation, USA co-hosted an international workshop on climate change on February 25-27, 2014 in New Delhi. The central objective of the workshop was to unbundle the different policy responses resulting from the multilateral negotiations thus far and their impact upon the evolution of existing and future multilateral frameworks. This Policy Brief aims to capture some of the salient per

Traditional development financing is proving insufficient to address overlapping global challenges, such as climate change and fragile contexts. This brief explores new thinking in development finance through two examples. The first is Islamic climate finance, which constitutes less than 2 percent of global Islamic finance. The brief identifies policy priorities and proposes dedicated Islamic climate-finance windows (e.g., in the Green Climate Fu

Given the increasing investment climate in post-war Sri Lanka and the growing Indian economy, the mood and climate are now just right for India-Sri Lanka relations to move forward even more, according to the outgoing Deputy High Commissioner of Sri Lanka.

As the frequency and impacts of climate events increase, demand for adaptation at the local level becomes urgent. The adaptation finance received from developing and least- developed countries is estimated to be less than USD 25 billion per year, which is exponentially less than the required amount of USD 215 billion per year. Further, the evidence indicates that less than 10% of global climate finance reaches the local level. Local communities l