Exploring India’s climate financing policies, this blog highlights the urgent need for resilience and adaptation strategies in response to increasing climate vulnerabilities and extreme weather events.
Climate financing policies across the globe, including India, prioritised investments in mitigation in sectors such as agriculture, waste management, renewable energy, and low-carbon transport with the long-term goal of reducing carbon emissions. Consequently, the inception of climate-resilient infrastructure and adaptation strategies were at the bottom of the list of policy priorities. When the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) in India was first conceptualised, it was to ensure that the economic growth of states would not face obstacles. This framework also dictated the State Action Plan on Climate Change (SAPCC). In hindsight, climate vulnerability was not viewed as a possible threat to human existence as initially, Indian policy priorities were food security, defence, agriculture, poverty, industrialisation and socio-economic inequality. In fact, India drafted its first environmental policy in 1986, only after the devastating Bhopal Gas Tragedy. Even then, climate policy in India emphasised conservation, protection and prevention. However, in the last few years, India has witnessed extreme heatwaves and floods. According to V.K. Singh & M.K. Roxy (2022), anthropogenic global warming has resulted in an increased frequency of cyclones originating from the Arabian Sea. This implies that India’s west coast is now vulnerable to the severity and persisting nature of cyclones. The State of Food and Agriculture 2021 report, revealed that from 2010-2019, India struggled to cope with the frequency of disasters, with the government estimating a loss of 36 million hectares of agricultural area since 2016. In 2022, Cyclone Sitrang and Cyclone Asani resulted in large-scale displacement in Odisha, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. The IMD, in its Annual Statement on Climate of India 2022, recorded 2,227 human casualties. In 2023, India’s North Sikkim was a victim of the flash floods in Teesta, Himachal Pradesh experienced landslides across several districts, and Uttarakhand experienced land subsidence in its Chamoli district due to development projects. With this, state action plans for climate-vulnerable states have started looking at climate action plans from a humanitarian perspective.
India’s Extent of Climate Vulnerability
To work towards climate resilience, it is necessary to establish the gravity of the climate crisis. India occupies 7th position in the Climate Vulnerability Index. A global study by the Cross Dependency Initiative on physical climate risk identified nine vulnerable Indian states— Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, and Kerala. This study also revealed that when extreme weather events occur, Assam, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Maharashtra experience the most damage to property. A district-level study by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) assessing Indian states’ climate vulnerability reveals that 27 Indian states, including union territories, are vulnerable to extreme climate events. The National Innovations on Climate Resilient Agriculture (NICRA) has identified 310 districts in 28 states and UTs that are most vulnerable. India’s approach to building resilient infrastructure has been passive thus far, but with disasters having claimed 2,923 human lives, damaged 1.84 million hectares (ha) of crop area, destroyed over 80,563 dwellings, and killed over 92,519 cattle, there is an urgent need for stringent implementation of state-level action plan. In 2023, 296 out of 334 extreme weather events occurred in central, northeastern, and northern Indian states. Lightning and hailstorms have been the most casualty-inducing and crop- destructive disasters in states like Bihar and Maharashtra, respectively. However, according to the Union Home Ministry’s data, if we were to point out the most devastating extreme weather events, torrential rains, floods, and landslides took the lives of over 2000 people in 2023. By noticing the pattern and manner of climate disasters, it is evident that the most affected sectors at the state level are Agriculture, Health, Housing and Urban Affairs, Panchayat Raj, Forest, Rural Development, Line Departments and Disaster Management Authorities of the states. However, owing to the unpredictability of such devastating events, climate-resilient action plans in India were always assumed to be the sole responsibility of the state disaster management authorities.
Lackadaisical Approach to Climate Resources
When Indian states initially developed their respective climate action plans, as per Oxford Policy Management, states received funds provided by the Centre and multilateral institutions. However, the states failed to mobilise these funds over the years, mostly due to political unwillingness and overemphasis on economic development priorities because of the rare frequency of extreme weather events. There was also either a lack of technical expertise or resource constraints to comprehend the urgency of climate change. However, even if there was technical expertise and financial resources, there was a lack of output at the state level. A report in the New Indian Express states that a reduction in NAFCC’s (National Adaptation Fund for Climate Change) budgetary allocation from INR 118 crore in 2015-16 to around INR 20 crore in 2022-23 as a result. However, the government is concentrating on energy transition and emission reduction policies.
A study by Jan Beermann and others revealed that Urban Local Bodies, District Disaster Management Authority and Line departments are neither consulted for their inputs nor are they assessed for their performance. However, the 73rd and 74th Amendments have allotted implementation and governance powers to them. Various interventions have been formulated and funded such as the Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan in Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu Coastal Zone Management Initiative, Karnataka’s Krishi Bhagya Scheme, Disaster Resilient Housing Projects in Odisha and Flood Management and Erosion Control Projects in Assam. The projects mentioned above were well-planned, but implementation fizzled due to the lack of convergence between nodal departments and ineffective communication at the community level.
Not only that, since the delegation of these funds did not happen in the annual development plans and budgets of the nodal departments, line departments could not facilitate proper implementation. It was assumed that the responsibility for ensuring the implementation of such policies was that of state-level departments or multilateral institutions.
In states like Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Sikkim, in the vehicle of climate resilience, displacement, and migration are riding shotgun. When advocating for climate-resilient policies in states likely to be victims of extreme weather events, there is a need to look at development infrastructure projects from a human lens. Although framing climate vulnerability as an economic problem will motivate politicians and businesspersons to take climate resilience seriously, state governments have been approaching the problem casually because it is inconsequential to the vote bank, thus robbing climate vulnerable victims of sustainable and permanent solutions.
A New Approach: Shifting Perspectives and Emerging Initiatives
Upon analysing the present climate action plans and initiatives undertaken by Indian states, it appears that there is a shift in perspective of how to approach climate resilience at the policy-making level. So far, climate resilient action plans in India have been synonymous with disaster management, but now states are conducting district-level Vulnerability Risk Assessments to trace weather patterns at the district level to better prepare for climate adaptation and resilience.
State Governments like Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu to develop mitigation and adaptation strategies have formed Climate Council and Tamil Nadu Green Climate Company, respectively. Assam recently produced a Green Budget 2023-24 to streamline resources. The Global Climate Fund is working with 24 target ecosystems in 12 coastal districts in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Odisha. 23 states are working with the national government to implement adaptive heat action plans in around 100 cities.
After discovering governance discrepancies, civil society organisations concerned about this have approached state governments to assist them. For example, the Oxford Policy Management is working with Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar, Assam, and Kerala on strengthening budget planning and implementation strategies of state-specific climate issues by integrating all departments concerned with SAPCCs. States like Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh are functioning effectively because their institutional structures are strong.
In Conclusion
Overall, piecemeal solutions, state political unwillingness, lack of permanent technical expertise, and under-supervised urban sprawl development have overridden climate resilience, mitigation, and adaptation action plans. However, instead of focusing on short-term solutions, state governments are investing in strengthening the climate resilience ecosystem. Various projects are working towards agriculture resilience, coastal adaptation, and heat but they are yet to scale up. Therefore, we are yet to witness the results of our state’s performance in the Climate Resilient Exam to understand if they are well-prepared or ill-prepared truly.
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