Aditya Valiathan Pillai

Fellow and Coordinator,
Adaptation and Resilience

aditya@sustainablefutures.org

Aditya Valiathan Pillai conducts research on climate adaptation, with a focus on strengthening policies to combat extreme heat. He also studies the forms and varieties of national climate institutions, and how India should restructure its institutions to achieve mitigation and adaptation objectives. He holds a master’s degree in international security from Sciences Po, Paris.

Publications

Books and book chapters

Climate Policy

Climate Change: Policy, Institutional, and Legal Framework

Navroz K Dubash, Aditya Valiathan Pillai et al

Oxford University Press | 23 July 2024

Transforming towards a low-carbon, climate-resilient society will require reimagining existing governance arrangements. This chapter in 'The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Natural Resources Law in India' documents how India’s policies, institutions, and legal structures have changed in response to climate change.

Opinions

Climate Policy

A law around low-carbon climate resilient development

Navroz K Dubash, Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Shibani Ghosh

The Hindu | 8 July 2024

Authors lay out an institutional vision for India’s climate law - knowledge-based ‘low-carbon development commission’; ‘climate cabinet’ to drive strategy; executive coordination body; and mechanisms for federal engagement.

Opinions

Climate Policy

Court on climate right and how India can enforce it

Navroz K Dubash, Shibani Ghosh and Aditya Valiathan Pillai

The Hindu | 1 July 2024

Because India is still developing, is highly vulnerable, and yet to build much of its infrastructure, what the country needs is a law that enables progress toward both low-carbon and climate resilient development.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Opinion: India is on the climate crisis front line. So why isn’t that an election issue?

Aditya Valiathan Pillai

CNN Opinion | 20 April 2024

Climate won’t be a major issue in India’s upcoming six-week-long national election, unlike in Australia, the UK, and US, where elections can hinge on climate policy positions. But it will shape Indian elections in definitive but under-the-radar ways.

SFC Perspectives

Adaptation and Resilience

Climate Policy

Energy Transitions

Environmental Governance and Policy

SFC Perspectives on Adaptation and Resilience, Climate Policy, Energy Transitions, and Environmental Governance and Policy

SFC

SFC | 19 March 2024

SFC Perspectives are intended to stimulate discussion by providing an overview of key issues and avenues for action to inform India's sustainable development trajectory.

SFC Perspectives

Adaptation and Resilience

Perspectives on Adaptation and Resilience: Building systems that allow India to adapt to climate impacts

Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Tamanna Dalal

SFC | 18 March 2024

The scale and complexity of the climate challenge merits serious consideration of systemic change, and a re-examination of what is needed for economy and society to thrive in an era of frequent, and often ravaging, climate impacts.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

Heatwaves will get worse. Invest in adapting now.

Aditya Valliathan Pillai and Satchit Balsari

Hindustan Times | 20 May 2023

India’s recent heat deaths are not outliers. They signal a dismal future unless we start taking the urgent threat of heat seriously.

Books and book chapters

Adaptation and Resilience

Climate Governance and Federalism in India

Aditya Valiathan Pillai and Navroz K Dubash

Cambridge University Press | 11 May 2023

The chapter puts forward a synthetic account of the forces shaping climate governance in India’s federal architecture, building on descriptions of environmental federalism; state actions in climate policy; and several recent policy moves by both the Centre and states.

Opinions

Adaptation and Resilience

The gaps in India’s ‘heat action plans’

Aditya Valiathan Pillai

CarbonBrief | 26 March 2023

​​The Indian government’s primary policy response to the life-threatening heat comes in the form of “heat action plans”. These plans urge a healthy mix of different solution types but most plans do not account for local context, are underfunded and are poor at identifying and targeting vulnerable groups.

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