India's Climate Change Strategy
The impacts of climate change are visible across sectors like biodiversity and forests; agriculture; water resources; coastal and marine ecosystems; human health; gender; urban and infrastructure; and economic costs. Climate impacts and risks exacerbate vulnerability and consequently increase economic development challenges.
As per India’s Third National Communication submitted to United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), India experiences climate change impacts, ranging from floods and droughts to heat waves and glacier melt.
Climate change adaptation and mitigation imposes an additional financial burden on developing countries including India. Scarcity of remaining carbon budget and provision of Means of Implementation in the form of finance, technology transfer and capacity building from developed countries, who are responsible for the cause of current climate change, forms the crucial challenges in mitigating effects of climate change. Developed countries have been lagging on providing climate finance in scale, scope, and speed and fulfilling their obligation. India’s climate adaptation actions are largely financed through domestic resources.
The broad categories of adaptation priorities for India have been identified as (i) Priorities related to knowledge systems on climate change risks and adaptation (ii) Priorities related to a reduction of exposure to climate risk; and (iii) Priorities related to building resilience and adaptive capacity. The Government is implementing the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) which provides the overarching framework for climate actions, through national missions in specific areas of solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, water, agriculture, Himalayan eco-system, sustainable habitat, green India, human health and strategic knowledge on climate change.
These Missions are institutionalized and implemented by respective nodal Ministries and Departments. Most of these Missions, inter-alia, focus on adaptation to combat the adverse impacts of climate change.
In line with the NAPCC, various States/Union Territories (UTs) have prepared respective State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) that are designed to address state-specific issues related to climate change through commensurate mitigation and adaptation measures. SAPCCs are designed to be context- specific, considering the different ecological, social, and economic conditions of each State.
In August 2022, India updated its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to enhance India’s contributions towards achievement of the strengthening of global response to the threat of climate change, as agreed under the Paris Agreement. As a part of the updated NDC, India has introduced the concept of Mission ‘LiFE’ (Lifestyle for Environment) to promote responsible consumption by focusing on behaviours and attitudes of individuals and communities.
