Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Energy Transitions

Heatwaves are no longer temporary disruptions to India’s power system; they are emerging as one of its defining operating conditions. The challenge is not merely to keep pace with rising power demand, but also to build a power system that is reliable, climate-resilient, socially equitable, and capable of supporting the country’s long-term energy transition.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Policy must approach coastal hazards as interlinked risks, not disconnected events, to build lasting resilience.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

The climate crisis is also a heath crisis, yet India’s strategy has been more to manage the immediate impact rather than shielding its most vulnerable populations from climate destabilisation.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Jui Gusani and Sony R K write on how India’s coastline relies on seawalls and embankments, while ecosystem-based adaptation through mangroves, seagrasses, and coral reefs continues to reduce climate risks.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

At present, heat action plans are written to be comprehensive rather than implementable. A focus on incentives and implementation—while remaining uncompromising on the determination of thresholds, vulnerability assessments and the specificity of solutions—is a productive way forward. We are yet to see plans that manage this balancing act. An example of how to solve this dilemma could help speed the rollout of heat protections as the climate warms.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

Key questions remain unanswered about the thresholds that define dangerous heat and the evidence supporting interventions to mitigate its health impacts. These underscore the need to build evidence-based and contextually grounded protections for India and the rest of the world. This requires expanding beyond laboratory studies and models to include community-informed research linking physiological and epidemiological data with the lived realities of those at greatest risk.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

Without urgent investments in adaptation, escalating heat and climate impacts will outpace the capacity of India’s health infrastructure and workforce, deepening inequities across regions and populations. To frame a credible health agenda for climate adaptation, we first need to understand the limits of what we know, and why our data systems fail to capture the true scale of climate-related health impacts.

Issue Briefs

Adaptation and Resilience

Interactions between acute coastal hazards such as cyclones and storm surges, and chronic coastal hazards such as sea-level rise, amplify impacts across social and ecological systems. A continued reliance on single-hazard planning can result in blind spots and maladaptation. We explore why strengthening coastal resilience in India requires moving beyond this reliance and adopting a multi-hazard approach to adaptation that integrates our understanding of interacting coastal hazards.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Forest finance remains low, largely dependent on public funds, and flowing mainly to richer countries, even as deforestation pressures are highest in tropical regions. Brazil has proposed a new forest financing mechanism, the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which aims to support standing natural forests for climate mitigation, an approach different from existing mechanisms. However, without addressing equity, weak monitoring systems, and outdated forest definitions, the initiative may fall short of delivering meaningful change.