Contextualising Adaptation in India

Aditi Kapoor/Alternative FuturesAdaptation and Disaster Resilience in India’s INDC

23 July 2015; New Delhi

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India’s Rationale for Adaptation in INDCPrimarily agrarian and highly disaster-prone countryLarge number of poor and marginalised people

• Need development but• Avoid unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions• Avoid erosion of development gains due to climate shocks• Reach out to the ‘last’ person.

Adaptation with MitigationClimate-resilient, Inclusive Development

Highly Vulnerable to Climate Change Impacts

Huge gender gap and highly stratified society Challenges

India’s Goals

India’s INDC

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State of Play• Excellent adaptive models in the field, related to agriculture

and disaster resilience.• Good policy framework for development.• Growing national and sub-national scientific knowledge on

vulnerability, disaster resilience and resilient agriculture.• Available and growing pool of state-of-the-art technologies for

adaptation. • Principle of socio-economic inclusion in many adaptation-

responsive policies and programmes.• Decentralised, inclusive governance system.• Strong culture of re-cycling, re-using, optimising use of

resources.• Tradition of indigenous knowledge and locally-appropriate

technology.• Presence of jugaad, the innovative streak.

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Where to invest in Adaptation in INDCWhat needs to be done?

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Adaptation Policy Goals in the INDC• Adaptation policy framework will be as strong as that of

mitigation and will converge with SDG targets.• Adaptive field-based models will be connected with larger policy

and knowledge frameworks through scaling out and supported by finance, technology and across-the-board built capacities.

• Development policy will add adaptive/‘resilient’ components with requisite budget support.

• Inclusion will be visible in the implementation and decision-making of adaptive programmes and schemes and will be supported by additional budgets, built capacities and technological reach for the most vulnerable and marginalised.

• Decentralised governance structures – gram panchayats and urban local bodies - will be capacitated to plan locally for adaptation and have financial and technological resources for implementation of adaptation measures.

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Adaptation Practice Goals in INDC• Science and technology will focus on field-based application and invest

in local technologies, knowhow and innovations by building capacities of research institutions, line agencies, local governance bodies and local community groups.

• Gender-based adaptation interventions and decision-making will be prioritised, supported by finance, technology and built capacities, because women are affected first and worst, especially women from already marginalised social groups, but are also the frontline fighters of climate vagaries.

• Building capacities and investing in socio-economic research to map changing vulnerabilities and improve monitoring and evaluation of gender-based adaptation indicators.

• Investing in the ‘soft power’ capacities of civil society groups to ensure spread of awareness, mobilisation of local communities, identification of local adaptive possibilities, building of local synergies between different actors and constructive engagement with adaptation governance.

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Thank you