Sustainable development is defined as meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability to meet needs in the future.  The threat of climate change requires something more than this.  The issue is not just avoiding anything now which will worsen climate now and in the future.  Our action now has to take into account the established probability of climate worsening for humans in the near future.  That is why the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change was negotiated and ratified a little over three decades ago and the preamble to UNFCCC stated that "responses to climate change should be, coordinated with social and economic development in an integrated manner with a view to avoiding adverse impacts on the latter".

This has not happened. The integration of climate action with development has perhaps played a role in renewable energy development, though even here the boom may be more attributable to the improved commercial prospects because of reduced capital costs.  The reality is that the policy making for climate action is separated from development policy formulation.

In practice current development needs and profit potentials drive both current and future actions.  That is why the adequacy and actual performance on climate mitigation made by the member states of UNFCCC is abysmal.  An independent organisation, Climate Action Tracker (CAT) evaluates the performance of major countries towards the goal of 1.5⁰C set in the Paris Agreement in 2015. In their assessment the action of practically all the major states is insufficient. USA, Russia, the Gulf States and much of south-east Asia are rated as 'critically insufficient'; India, China, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Canada and Mexico are rated as 'highly insufficient'; most of Europe, Australia and South Africa are rated as 'insufficient'.  If all countries were in each category, the temperature rise be over 4⁰C, 3-4⁰C and 2-3⁰C respectively for these three categories.

The issue is not whether the countries will reach what they have promised for 2030. India will and may even exceed the target.   The real issue for CAT is that the stated targets for 2030 are inadequate for reaching the global limit of 1.5⁰C.

The situation now has worsened with the withdrawal of USA from the Paris Agreement and from the UNFCCC which will take effect only in January 2027. Their malign impact will be seen in this year's meeting of UNFCCC in Antalya, Turkey with the Australia as the chair for the negotiations. 

Quite frankly we must accept that because of their limited promises, the countries of the world will not succeed in limiting the future of temperature increase to the goals set in the Paris Agreement.  On September 2, UNEP published a report recognising for the first time that the 1.5°C threshold will be breached within a matter of years, not decades. Climate policy must now focus as much on building up resilience to higher temperature and adaptation as on climate change mitigation.  This is part of the agenda for UNFCCC.  But the actual designing and implementation of resilience and adaptation will differ greatly on local conditions.  This is what India should now pay greater attention to in its climate policy.

Are we doing enough on adaptation and resilience? An index which measures a country’s exposure, sensitivity and capacity to adapt to the negative effects of climate change across six sectors – food, water, health, ecosystem services, human habitat, and infrastructure - places India at level 28 out of 48 in Asia and Pacific.  Its neighbours, other than Sri Lanka, are below this level and even more vulnerable to climate change risks.

In India we need to raise the importance of a climate change management strategy that connects it more directly with the main framework of development policy. Looking at the long-term trend of development requires a proper integration of climate change management and traditional development action e.g. agricultural growth targets and adaptation of agriculture to temperature increase and rising uncertainties about water availability.  The most crucial challenge is the adaptation at the local level to cope with rising temperature, which may go up to as much as 50⁰C in summer, its impact on health and the energy demand it will generate for cooling. We must also recognise that cooperation between neighbouring countries on interlinked climate related impacts say on shared rivers may be necessary and useful.

The most important planning need is to raise the importance of climate change management by setting up a National Climate Management Body involving the Centre and all States and perhaps also municipalities of very large cities to review and evaluate adequacy of adaptation and mitigation performance and secure agreement on future plans for climate management. A major reason for this is the fact that the formulation and implementation of adaptation actions and building up resilience has to be at a local level and involve sectors which are well within state level control and management.

Since climate action generally aims at long term challenges which may not be properly experienced at present, we must design climate management programmes that also deliver more immediate benefits. For example, forest restoration and strengthening for increasing carbon sequestration can be connected with current co-benefits like improvements in water supply, renewable energy with better availability of local power supply, electric vehicles with reduction in running cost of the vehicle. Such co-benefits will make long term actions more acceptable.

While adaptation and resilience management can be led by State governments and perhaps major local authorities with suitable variations required for local regions, the continuing drive for climate change mitigation will remain a central responsibility of the central government. So far much of the focus has been on promotion of renewable energy.  But there is now a programme for compliance standards and carbon pricing. This includes Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) that imposes emission standards on several energy-intensive industries and trade amongst then in surpluses and deficits and Environment Audit Rules, 2025 that involves environmental audits for industries with a potentially adverse impact on climate change and a host of other activities. Placing this under oversight by the National Climate Management Body suggested above can raise the pressure for compliance. One must also recognise that carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) may be a necessity for major carbon emitting industries like steel and cement. At present India's share in global CCUS is negligible and the Union government must vigorously pursue the five-year provision of Rs 20000 crores it made in the 2026-27 budget.

The Centre can play a major role in helping states, not just with predictable and sufficient finance for their broad-based climate action but also using satellite imagery to improve information about climate impact actions and AI methods to asses climate impact, link climate action with development activities and also improve the effectiveness of local, state and central climate linked policies and programmes.

I have focussed on national action.  But we must recognise our continuing requirement to get more effective global cooperative action on climate mitigation and technology and finance provisions required for mitigation and adaptation.  Right now, the prospects for effective global cooperation look rather poor.  But hopefully, with the increasing experience of climate change, for instance like the high temperatures experienced by the Northern states recently, global cooperation may become more effective, and I hope we will see some early sign of this in the UNFCCC meeting next month.