Mainstreaming climate change and sustainable development amongst the elected representatives: need for an environmentally resilient sustainable developed India

Abstract

Climate Change no more remains an issue for the developed nations to deal with. India, having grown to be the world s third largest economy, has also emerged as the third largest contributor of green house gases. India stands at a cross road where it aims at high growth rate at one end, and needs to be countering climate change and ensure climate resilient development for its 120 million people. Global indexes have ranked India to be extremely vulnerable to climate change and predict drastic socio-economical consequences by the end of the 21st century unless development is climate proofed in India. Research studies predict increased occurrences of calamities like floods, droughts, cyclones, along with decrease crop yields, water shortages and increased occurrences of diseases like Malaria in India, all attributed to Climate Change. But there is a lack of understanding of issues surrounding climate change within the Indian polity, which is a reflection of the lack of knowledge on the same in the general Indian public. The levels of understanding of the public is to a great extend reflected in the same of their elected polity. The only way of dealing with this information asymmetry is that the elected politicians in India across various levels be mainstreamed with climate change issues and the strategies for dealing with them. This will ensure that they form policies in different sectors for a climate resilient development along with advocating the same to their constituencies. Currently there is no such direct policy on mainstreaming the ideas behind climate change and sustainable development to the elected politicians. Also, there exists very little literature on similarly implemented policies in other parts of the globe. So, this policy memo explores through primary interviews with relevant stake holders and secondary data on the MLAs and MPs, whether such a policy is required in the country and what is a feasible strategy to implement the same. It takes one of the largest and most vulnerable states of India, Madhya Pradesh as its case of assessment. It was found that there is a great support amongst the polity and other stakeholders for a national policy advocating a nodal agency with programs on mainstreaming climate change amongst the elected representatives. It is expected that such a policy will help the elected representatives better connect with the issues in their respective constituencies and will assist them in giving directed effort on developmental projects along with mitigating and adapting towards climate change. An informed polity will help climate proofing of all other policies in India and ultimately lead towards a climate resilient and developed India.