Climate Change | Indian cities need innovation, integrated climate action planning

The need of the hour is to move beyond traditional patterns of urban development and planning, where tackling Climate Change is not just seen as an add-on to the overall urban development strategy. (Image: Reuters)

Rhea Srivastava

Indian cities are rapidly becoming vulnerable to climate-related extreme weather events that are ultimately deteriorating the urban environment and citizens’ quality of life. For the past few months now most parts of North India have been grappling with a severe heatwave, with temperatures in New Delhi reaching 49 degree Celsius. At the same time, the Northeast was hit by flash floods and massive landslides, causing a number of deaths, disruption of essential infrastructure, and livelihood displacement.

In 2020, extreme weather events such as floods, heavy rainfall, heatwaves, etc. killed about 2,000 people across India and bore an annual financial loss of about $87 billion. As clear indicators of Climate Change, these shocks affect key urban sectors, such as energy systems, water supply, and transport infrastructure. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its report has further warned that key infrastructure in many cities along India’s coastline is likely to get submerged by 2050 due to significant sea level rise, and inundation. The increasing frequency and intensity of such climate risks and impacts bring about a critical question at the forefront — are Indian cities prepared for Climate Change, and its looming impacts?

Cities require a transformative approach to deal with Climate Change — one that comprises of a robust mix of adaptation (adjusting to/reducing the impact) and mitigation actions (addressing the cause, i.e. GHG emissions). Despite this, much of the focus for achieving climate resilience in Indian cities leans more towards climate mitigation. The present adaptation actions that are being implemented tend to be reactive and sectoral in nature. For example, disaster recovery efforts after multiple floods, or our focus on clean air specifically. These standalone interventions may not consider sectoral relationships, and feedback loops, thereby, exacerbating the long-term damage to other infrastructure, resources, and most importantly the vulnerable and marginalised groups of society.

The need of the hour is to move beyond traditional patterns of urban development and planning, towards innovative and integrated climate action planning, where tackling Climate Change is not just seen as an add-on to the overall urban development strategy. Innovative multi-level governance and finance mechanisms that incorporate adaptation thinking into existing local planning processes can minimise trade-offs and create cross-sectoral synergies, especially when coupled with efficient mitigation interventions. Local leadership providing room for autonomous change has the potential to transform planning capacities, and address complex urban inequalities generated from the climate crisis.

Some cities have recently started developing innovative ways to enhance their adaptive capacity. Mumbai, which came up with its own climate action plan setting a net-zero target for 2050, created a pathway to catalyse change in governance mechanisms across India. The city’s climate action plan takes a pragmatic approach towards climate resilience by keeping adaptation and mitigation activities well balanced, and giving priority to the local stakeholders. The action plan further talks about establishing a climate action cell in the city that will focus on the monitoring, evaluation, and reporting of the actions, including a feedback mechanism. Other cities such as Rajkot, Surat, and Udaipur have also prepared comprehensive city-level action plans for resilience.

Nevertheless, weak institutional capacities including lack of context-specific expertise on adaptation planning and financial resource mobilisation are the common roadblocks for optimising adaptation policy action in majority of cities. Indian cities currently exhibit patterns of path dependency and lock-in, shaped by a blend of past and present choices.

Many city governments to this date depend heavily on national and state governments for urban development and climate action policy implementation, as well as for financial support. In a number of cases, climate datasets necessary for adaptation and mitigation planning (e.g., risk assessments, are available at the national/state level, while Climate Change impacts manifest locally). Additionally, lack of co-ordination among government departments, both vertically — between local, state, and national levels — and horizontally across departments, further deteriorate local capacities.

In an effort to tackle these challenges at the local level, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launched the ‘Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework’ (CSCAF) as a tool for cities to assess their present climate preparedness. The framework, which assessed 126 cities on 28 climate indicators, essentially acts as a guiding framework for cities to become climate responsive by learning from best practices, monitoring their climate impacts, and making informed decisions for resource mobilisation. This initiative is a significant step towards mainstreaming integrated climate action using a bottom-up approach while generating numerous systemic co-benefits.

In the long term, Climate Change along with rapid urbanisation and population growth will make integrated climate action planning a pre-requisite for cities. Revising the core fabric of urban development through multi-level governance, multi-stakeholder engagement, and building local capacities for informed and inclusive decision-making with respect to climate resilience are, therefore, instrumental for Indian cities in managing complex climate issues and achieving holistic climate action.

Rhea Srivastava is Research Associate, Transport & Urban Governance division, TERI. Views are personal, and do not represent the stand of this publication.