Contextualising adaptation in India

1. Contextualising Adaptation in India
Aditi Kapoor/Alternative Futures
Adaptation and Disaster Resilience in India’s INDC
23 July 2015; New Delhi

2. India’s Rationale for Adaptation in INDC
Primarily agrarian and highly disaster-prone country
Large 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 Mitigation
Climate-resilient, Inclusive Development
Highly Vulnerable to Climate Change Impacts
Huge gender gap and highly stratified society
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Challenges
India’s Goals
India’s INDC

3. 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. 3

4. Where to invest in Adaptation in INDC
What needs to be done?
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5. 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. 5

6. 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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7. Thank you
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