Climate change is a 'wicked' problem--it is riven with scientific uncertainty, contending interests, and competing interpretations. For India, the challenges of addressing climate change are compounded by a sense of injustice - we did not cause the problem -- and immediate challenges of poverty and development. Yet, it is increasingly becoming clear that globally, climate change poses an existential challenge, and, in India, a pathway to development innocent of climate change is no longer possible.
How is India facing up to the climate challenge? This volume brings together leading researchers and practitioners - negotiators, activists and policymakers--to lay out the emergent debate on climate change in India. The book covers climate impacts, negotiations, politics, policy, and the
integration of climate concerns into sectoral debates, such as on energy and water. Each chapter provides an accessible entry point and a framework for understanding an aspect of India's engagement with climate change.
A central theme of the book is that India has shifted from understanding the climate change problem as a diplomatic challenge to increasingly engaging with it as a developmental problem. To address this challenge requires integrating climate change and development, and doing so at multiple scales of
governance - national, state, and local.
