Easwaran J Narassimhan
Fellow and Coordinator, Climate Policy
Easwaran J Narassimhan is a Fellow and Coordinator of climate policy at the Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC) in New Delhi, India. He is also a visiting faculty member at the Climate Policy Lab, Fletcher School, Tufts University. Previously, Easwaran was a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR) in New Delhi and a Research Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. At SFC, Easwaran focuses on energy technology innovation, green industrialization, and energy transition in emerging economies. He has also worked extensively on climate policy analysis, including studying market-based and non-market-based policy interventions worldwide and identifying policy mixes for low-carbon development in developing countries. Easwaran holds an MA and PhD in International Affairs from The Fletcher School, Tufts University.
Publications
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
Climate Policy
Perspectives on Climate Policy: Embedding a development-centric, climate-ready approach to policymaking
Aman Srivastava, Easwaran J Narassimhan and Navroz K Dubash
SFC | 18 March 2024
The Climate Policy group within SFC approaches policy challenges through a strategic lens, aiming for long-term structural change by shifting discourse, building stronger institutions, and aligning conditions for implementation.
Journal articles
Climate Policy
Strategies for green industrial and innovation policy–an analysis of policy alignment, misalignment, and realignment around dominant designs in the EV sector
Easwaran J Narassimhan, Zdenka Myslikova et al.
Environmental Research Letters | 7 December 2023
This paper explores which combination of technology-push and demand-pull policies best situates a country to lead in clean energy innovation, as new or dominant designs emerge and replace older technologies. A new analytical framework for green industrial policy is applied to BEV drivetrain technology to examine the use of policy alignment and misalignment by countries with big automakers as they pursue strategic green industrial policy.
Opinions
Energy Transitions
India’s just energy transition is more than a coal story
Easwaran J Narassimhan, Ashwini K Swain et al.
The Hindu | 6 February 2023
India’s G-20 presidency is an opportunity for New Delhi to negotiate a deal for itself while also shaping international cooperation on just energy transitions.
Journal articles
Climate Policy
Carbon Pricing in the US: Examining State-Level Policy Support and Federal Resistance
Easwaran J Narassimhan, Stefan Koester et al.
Politics and Governance | 17 March 2022
Federal carbon pricing in the US suffers from the lack of any natural and/or consistent constituency to support it through policy development, legislation, and implementation. While interest group politics have been mitigated by good policy entrepreneurship at the subnational level, the lack of policy entrepreneurship and the changing positions of competing interest groups have kept a federal carbon pricing policy from becoming a reality.
Journal articles
Climate Policy
From fossil to low carbon: The evolution of global public energy innovation
Fang Zhang, Kelly Sims Gallagher et al.
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change | 17 August 2021
Global government energy RD&D investments between 2000-2018 are decarbonizing. Nuclear has held steady, fossil fuels have decreased, and clean energy has increased. China and India have now joined the United States and Japan in the ranks of the top four countries overall.
Climate Policy
Green Industrial Policy: A Delicate Dance between Socio-Economic and Environmental Objectives
Easwaran J Narassimhan
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy | 1 April 2021
The central purpose of this dissertation is to examine how countries at different stages of economic development address socio-economic objectives through green industrial policies, focusing mainly on the employment implications of their policies. The dissertation draws on interviews with more than 100 experts in China, India, South Africa, and Ethiopia to analyze the employment implications of specific green industrial policy strategies, policy choices, and policy design and the role of government in managing the same.
Journal articles
Energy Transitions
Banking on coal? Drivers of demand for Chinese overseas investments in coal in Bangladesh, India, Indonesia and Vietnam
Kelly Sims Gallagher, Rishikesh Bhandary et al.
Energy Research & Social Science | 14 January 2021
This paper investigates why new coal-fired power plants are being financed and built in South and Southeast Asia given that new coal plants without carbon capture and storage are incompatible with a 1.5 °C temperature goal. The paper particularly focuses on developing countries where these coal-fired power plants are being built that are recipients of Chinese government-backed finance.
Journal articles
Climate Policy
Experience with carbon taxes and greenhouse gas emissions trading systems
Erik Haites, Duan Maosheng et al.
Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum | 26 July 2018
Carbon taxes and emissions trading systems (ETSs) to limit emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) are increasingly common. At the end of 2015, 17 GHG ETSs were operational in 55 jurisdictions, and 18 jurisdictions collected at least one carbon tax. This paper assesses the performance of carbon taxes and ETSs with respect to environmental effectiveness (reduction of emissions regulated by the instrument), cost-effectiveness (marginal abatement cost), economic efficiency, public finance, and administrative issues.