India had adopted a comprehensive strategy in 2009 to tackle environmental challenges. It is now up to the respective State Governments to encourage and recognise the efforts to implement the action plan on climate change
A growing awareness on the relevance of climate change within the Government, civil society and the corporate sector, coupled with mounting international pressure, had led India to adopt a comprehensive strategy to tackle environmental challenge in 2009. As a part of this initiative, the respective State Governments were advised to develop their individual State Action Plans on Climate Change, that could be implemented in a decentralised manner. The SAPCC constituted a part of the larger national climate change mitigation strategy in the form of National Action Plan on Climate Change.
The States were technically assisted to form the SAPCC with a focus on robust climate adaptation strategies by the German development organisation, the German Society for International Cooperation, the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and the UK Department for International Development, in association with the Ministry for Environment, Forests & Climate Change.
As of October 2014, as many as 28 States had completed the draft plan; the ministry has endorsed 19 plans and the Expert Committee on Climate Change has considered three. Globally, the local community level climate change initiatives are fed into the State level planning, which form the foundation for a larger mainstream national climate change management programme.
The empowerment of the local communities not only ensures the involvement of the concerned stakeholders during the planning phase for the preservation of their environment, but also guarantees success when the plans are brought into implementation. However in India, the SAPCC that have been created so far have been unable to generate the requisite enthusiasm and impact. Almost all plans failed to offer a clear, consistent and well-argued set of recommendations that amounts to a clear vision. This has created ambiguity and affected a confident implementation of these plans.
In addition, inadequate awareness about climate change, and a lack of a conceptual framework to link sustainability and climate change, have further compounded the problem. Moreover, the States concerned could not leverage their scientific intellectual capital and channelise the same into the preparation of the SAPCC. As a result, the plans lacked thoroughness and quality, which in turn, affected their execution.
To emerge from this plan and implementation paralysis, the States must ensure that a ‘one template for all’ format is not followed to draft their plans. Climate adaptation plans also need to be based on thorough information and reliable data pertaining to the specific State. This includes making provisions for intelligent data gathering concerning the local climate. A robust database will help construct realistic scenarios and help lend immense practicality to the recommendations.
There is a need to align the SAPCC’s with the economic growth objectives of the State. This will increase the common man’s confidence and participation in the climate change action plans besides encouraging the business community to increase investment and trade in the local economy. A successful SAPCC must also facilitate the working of a cross-section of inter-disciplinary teams in order to leverage the best of experience and knowledge. This will automatically lead towards cross-sectoral strategies and policies that will improve resilience of systems and reduce the risk of multiple climate hazards.
Addressing climate change is necessary if we are to ensure future economic, environmental and social well-being. Many State communities and non-profit organisations are already doing commendable work for mitigating climate change. But these efforts are currently scattered. It is up to the State Governments to encourage and recognise these efforts by binding them in a unified SAPCC in order to create local climate change adaption action plan that has a common ownership.
For this to take place, the State authorities must break-free of their own red tape and build a resilient economic future by anticipating and responding to climate change that is now inevitable. States that regard the creation of the SAPCC as a mere formality will find the cost of climate change impact rising sharply, threatening their economic and social fabric.
Effective SAPCCs can play a key role to help, secure radical reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, minimising vulnerability and providing resilience to the impacts of climate change besides, supporting the delivery of renewable and low carbon energy and associated infrastructure. This is central to the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainable development at the State level. If India can get the implementation right, the National Climate Change Action Plan will be an automatic success.