Publication Type: Issue Briefs

Strengthening Coastal Resilience in India: A Multi-Hazard Approach to Adaptation Governance

Introduction

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Coastal zones are the most productive and dynamic ecosystems on earth, supporting extensive economic activity, natural resources, and livelihoods. However, climate change is increasingly placing pressure on these regions through multiple interacting coastal hazards, such as sea-level rise (SLR), cyclones, storm surges, floods, and erosion. India, with an extensive coastline of approximately 11,098 km, stretching across nine states and four union territories, hosts rich marine biodiversity, diverse ecosystems, and more than 250 million people within 50 km of the shoreline. This coastline is vital to both the national and state economies, as these ecosystems underpin local livelihoods, industries, and development projects, making climate impacts on the coast particularly consequential for human well-being and economic stability.

Simplified model of interactions between multiple coastal hazards. Source: Authors’ analysis.

Recent studies indicate that India’s coastal regions are experiencing accelerating trends in climate-related hazards. Observed changes include relative SLR along both the east and west coasts, increasing frequency and intensity of cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea, more frequent coastal flooding and erosion, and growing saltwater intrusion into coastal aquifers and agricultural lands. These climate-driven hazards, together with non-climatic pressures such as coastal development, population growth, subsidence, and shoreline modification, are collectively transforming India’s coastal regions into high-risk zones and exacerbating existing social and ecological vulnerabilities. 

Managing the complex risks emerging from these hazards depends critically on how coastal governance is structured. Over the past decade, India has taken important steps to assess climate vulnerability and develop adaptation measures for coastal regions through initiatives such as the National Coastal Mission (NCM) under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC), and vulnerability assessments supported by the National Centre for Coastal Research. However, vulnerability assessments and adaptation planning remain focused on single hazards and are often implemented in silos. This fragmented approach overlooks the cascading and compounding nature of coastal hazards and limits the effectiveness of risk mitigation. 

House destroyed by sea surge in Valiyathura, Kerala. Credits: Prasoon Kiran.

A significant body of literature shows that interactions between acute coastal hazards, such as cyclones and storm surges, and chronic coastal hazards, such as SLR, amplify impacts across social and ecological systems. Hence, continued reliance on single-hazard planning can result in blind spots and maladaptation. 

In this issue brief, we highlight why strengthening coastal resilience in India requires moving beyond single-hazard planning and adopting an integrated understanding of interacting coastal hazards. We do this in 3 parts: 
– First, by outlining key coastal hazards, their interactions, and emerging trends.
– Second, by examining India’s coastal governance landscape and its limitations;
– and finally, by proposing a shift toward a multi-hazard, systems-based approach to strengthen long-term resilience.

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Strengthening the Scientific Foundations of NCAP: Building a Standardised Framework for Source Apportionment and Emission Inventories

Introduction

India’s first comprehensive action plan for air quality management in cities, the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), was launched by the Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) in 2019. The programme initially aimed to achieve a 20–30% reduction in PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations by 2024 across 102 identified cities with an emphasis on PM2.5 due to its significant health impacts. In 2022, the Non-Attainment Cities (NACs) list was revised to include 130 cities. In parallel, PM10 was designated as the pollutant of interest, with its reduction as the metric of progress, due to limitations in PM2.5 baseline data. The programme goal was revised to achieve a 40% reduction in PM10 levels, or attainment of national ambient air quality standards
(NAAQS), by 2025–26 in the NACs.

The 130 NACs were chosen based on an analysis of 2017 manual monitoring data from the National Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Programme (NAMP). Among these, more than 40 cities with over a million residents received air quality performance grants through the 15th Finance Commission’s Million-Plus City Challenge Fund. The remaining cities are supported under the ‘Control of Pollution’ budgetary head of the MoEF&CC. Consequently, cities lacking functional monitoring stations or those that did not fulfil the requirement (cities that exceeded NAAQS for five consecutive years from three monitoring stations) were excluded from the NAC classification. This has resulted in the omission of several other polluted cities (such as Ranchi and Howrah) from the NCAP non-attainment list.

The NCAP vision document also outlined a vision for “comprehensive, multi-scale, and cross-sectoral” action to address not only sources within the remit of the MoEF&CC but also those outside it. It also sought to mainstream air pollution action through existing programmes such as the Smart Cities Mission. Additionally, it aimed to convene sector-specific working groups (such as with the Ministry of Power (MoP) to focus on emissions from thermal power plants and the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) on vehicular emissions) to promote broader action on pollution mitigation. However, there has been little documented progress on the constitution of these working groups, the development of sectoral action plans, or the integration with other programmes.

Based on NCAP goals, the 130 non-attainment cities prepared city action plans detailing source-specific interventions categorised as short-, medium-, and long-term measures, which the CPCB subsequently approved. These city action plans, meant to be backed by analyses that determine source-specific emissions, form the basis for how cities are supposed to approach air quality action under the NCAP. However, five years into the programme, most cities have yet to complete their source apportionment (SA) or emissions inventory (EI) studies, and their role in determining city-level actions remains unclear. In this brief, we highlight the significance of SA and EI studies as the backbone of effective air quality management, and explain why India needs to strengthen its approach to conducting these studies to integrate them into policy actions.

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Different Paths to Clean Air: Global Insights for India’s Reform Agenda

Summary

India’s air pollution crisis cannot be solved without addressing key structural and institutional constraints, such as reforming our environmental regulatory regime – one that remains under-capacitated, poorly equipped, and under-funded. Previous works have examined their capacities, constraints, and performance in isolation to understand why frontline environmental regulators in India struggle to meet their mandate. Our new issue brief presents a comparative analysis of learnings from diverse air quality regimes and charts a roadmap for building a capable and forward-looking environmental regulatory regime in India.

We study how countries across the Global South and North, such as Brazil, China, Germany, Mexico, Poland, South Korea, and the USA, have built and reformed their air quality regimes, and what India can learn from them to address the challenges ahead. These countries were chosen to be comparable and relevant to India, and the group is therefore a mix of countries with large economies, a history of dealing with high air pollution, and rapid industrialisation coupled with high GDP growth. The varied source profiles, regulatory institutions, history of air pollution policymaking, and differing governance regimes (unitary vs. federal) in these countries also present differing approaches that could inform Indian policymaking on air quality.

Table 1: Sampling parameters for the 7 countries

We highlight trends and examples relevant to India – how countries set health-based standards, strengthen accountability for action, scale air quality monitoring, and manage airsheds.

Key Learnings

1. Science plays a fundamental role in establishing strict, health-based air quality standards
2. Strong focus on PM2.5 reductions through top-down or bottom-up approaches, depending on country contexts
3. Large increases in monitoring capacity alone may not necessarily yield spatial and temporal representativeness
4. Indian regulators are comparatively resource-poor
5. Airshed-level governance is gaining importance and requires nested governance
6. Accountability is a catalyst for sustained improvements in air quality

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What Does Net-Zero Mean? Defining Goals Aligned With National Contexts

Introduction

Net-zero emissions targets have emerged as a central pillar of global climate ambition. As of June 2025 (following the US’s second withdrawal from the Paris Agreement), 142 countries have announced—or are considering—net-zero targets. Together, they account for nearly 76% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and 84% of the world’s population. However, these targets vary in scopes and timelines, reflecting differences in historical responsibility, development needs, domestic capabilities, political realities, and economic structures. Developed economies like the European Union and Japan target reaching net-zero by 2050, while China aims to reach it by 2060. India has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2070. 

As India gradually pivots towards a net-zero pathway, it is crucial to establish a clear, shared understanding among national and sub-national governments, policymakers, regulators, industries, and civil society of what ‘net-zero’ truly means in the domestic context. Without this coherence, strategies risk being fragmented or misaligned across levels of governance and sectors of the economy. 

This issue brief outlines key considerations that can help shape a comprehensive definition of net-zero emissions for India, not by prescribing implementation strategies, but by deconstructing net-zero targets by their constituent elements necessary for clarity, comparability, and accountability. The brief discusses these elements across four aspects: [1] Targets reflect “what” the entity aims to achieve and whether interim milestones are included. [2] Scope defines “what all is covered”. To put into perspective, two entities may share the same headline target but differ significantly in coverage. [3] Sinks and Offsets clarify how residual emissions will be addressed, and what forms of carbon removals are deemed acceptable, credible, and verifiable. [4] Governance encompasses institutional arrangements for reporting, monitoring, and review. Ensuring that those responsible for delivering on targets are held to account through appropriate mechanisms, incentives, and oversight structures.

Taken together, these dimensions form the building blocks of a robust net-zero definition. The brief’s objective is to support India in deciding the design of the end-goal itself, rather than outlining the path to reach it.

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The Indian Carbon Market: Institutional, Regulatory, and Market Considerations

Introduction

India is at a critical juncture in its climate policy journey. In the near-term, it aims to reduce the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% below 2005 levels by 2030. Its longer-term goal is to reach net-zero emissions by 2070. Meeting these targets will require a combination of policy interventions, technological advancements, regulatory mechanisms, and financial support.

As part of this broader transition, India is developing a national carbon market under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act 2022 (See Fig. 1 for a timeline of developments around the CCTS). The Carbon Credit and Trading Scheme (CCTS), notified by the Ministry of Power (MoP) in June 2023, lays the foundation for a carbon market that seeks to balance economic growth with climate goals.

Fig. 1: Key Milestones in India’s Carbon Market Development

The effectiveness of the CCTS will depend on several interlinked factors- clear governance structures, credible price signals, transparent processes, institutional capacity, and harmonisation with existing domestic programs and global frameworks. Recognising the complexity of these issues, Prayas Energy Group (PEG) and Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC) convened a closed-door roundtable under the Chatham House rules on March 20, 2025 in New Delhi, which brought together participants from across policy think tanks, regulatory consultancies, industry, industry associations, and civil society organisations. It served as a platform to exchange diverse perspectives on the institutional, regulatory, and market-related elements of the CCTS. This brief reflects the key insights that emerged from the discussion, highlighting seven broad yet interlinked issues central to the design and operationalisation of the CCTS. 

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Ratcheting Ambition in Climate Finance: Key Challenges and Goals for COP29

Introduction

The 29th Conference of the Parties (COP29) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), scheduled to be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, in November 2024, presents another pivotal moment in global climate action. A key area of focus at COP29 will be the decision on a New Collective Quantified Goal (NCQG) for climate finance, which is meant to replace the 2009 pledge by developed countries to provide $100 billion annually to developing countries by 2020.

Seen as a key symbol of trust, transparency, and cooperation between developed and developing countries, the NCQG is a crucial lever for strengthening the shared responsibility and mutual commitment essential for tackling the climate crisis.

This issue brief provides an overview of key issues to watch in NCQG discussions, exploring the role and relevance of the NCQG, strategies for its effective implementation, and implications of the outcome for broader climate diplomacy. The brief is based on insights shared during SFC’s recent webinar, “Climate Finance at COP 29: What New, Collective, Quantified Ambition?”, held on October 28, 2024, which aimed to summarise and contextualise the current state of play in climate finance negotiations as COP29 approaches.

The speakers for this webinar were Joe Thwaites, Senior Advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Jonathan Beynon, Senior Policy Associate at the Center for Global Development (CGD); and Avantika Goswami, Programme Manager at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The session was moderated by Aman Srivastava, Fellow and Coordinator, Climate Policy, at the Sustainable Futures Collaborative (SFC).

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