Climate resilience plans in Indian cities focus on individual risks rather than preparing for multiple risks
On 23 September, Maharashtra Environment Minister, Aaditya Thackeray announced that 43 cities across the state would join the United Nations-backed ‘Race to Zero’ global campaign, aimed at generating jobs while meeting the goals of climate change and sustainable development. Is. This is commendable and timely – Maharashtra has been repeatedly identified as a state that experiences multiple risks (floods, drought, sea level rise) and inadequately reported policy action on climate-resilient development. Is.
Are cities doing enough?
Indian cities have often been singled out for not doing enough on climate change. To examine this, we assessed climate action in 53 Indian cities with a population of over one million and found that almost half of the cities report climate plans, that is, they have a climate resilience plan or set of projects. Of these, 18 cities have gone ahead with the intention of implementation. These numbers highlight encouraging first steps indicating that recurrent experiences of floods, water shortages, cyclones and hurricanes are taking over urban development policy.
However, a lot of interventions are being implemented especially through regional projects focusing on different risks. For example, most cities report targeted projects to combat heat waves and water scarcity, followed by inland flooding, extreme rainfall and increasing disease incidence. Despite India’s long coastline and highly vulnerable coastal cities and infrastructure, coastal flooding, sea level rise and cyclones are less discussed. This focus ignores how many risks overlap and reinforce each other – for example, the seasonal cycles of floods and water scarcity in Chennai.
Importantly, solutions exist and many of them together can meet the Climate Action and Sustainable Development Goals. At the forefront of this area have been cities like Ahmedabad, which have a Heat Action Plan (HAP) since 2010, whose success is evident from the low heat mortality rate. HAPs include key government departments, NGOs, researchers and citizens and focus on high-risk social groups such as wage workers, low-income groups, women and the elderly. By combining infrastructural interventions (for example, whitewashing roofs) and behavioral aspects (building public awareness on heat management), the model has now been extended to 17 cities across the country.
Nature-based solutions such as mangrove restoration in coastal Tamil Nadu and urban wetland management in Bengaluru have demonstrated how restoring ecosystem health can sustain human systems as well. For example, urban parks provide cooling benefits and wetlands control urban flooding.
Obstacles and the way forward
Many have recognized how inadequate finance and political will at the urban scale hinder the development of sustainable Indian cities. However, what is less discussed is the insufficient institutional capacity to change the way existing government departments operate. This would lead to moving away from looking at risks in isolation and planning for multiple, intersecting risks. This will mean changing the way our cities operate and expand. Flexibility in every department for long-term planning requires planners as well as communication channels across departments to enable vertical and horizontal knowledge sharing.
Another important aspect inherent in transforming cities is the focus on changing behavior and lifestyles. This is difficult and less understood because the norms we adhere to, the values we cherish, and the systems we are familiar with prevent change. An emerging example of slow but steady behavior change is low-level sustainable practices such as urban farming where citizens are interpreting sustainability at the local and individual level. This could mean growing your own food on rooftops as well as increasing local biodiversity; Composting from organic waste and reducing landfill pressure; Sharing agricultural produce with a neighbor, bringing communities closer and creating awareness about growing food.
India is fast becoming urban. Its towns or cities like villages are sites where the twin challenges of climate change and inclusive growth will be won or lost. Pledges like Maharashtra’s are a welcome addition to ongoing climate plans. It remains to be seen how they translate into action. While gloom and doom dominate climate reportage, a range of solutions exist with co-benefits for climate action and development. We must focus on how to take advantage of these solutions and prepare our city planners and citizens to implement them.
Chandni Singh is a senior researcher and faculty member at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS), Bengaluru; Maithili Madhavan IIHS. is a research associate in
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