Policy Briefs & Reports

Building Institutions for Climate Policy in India

Navroz K Dubash
Neha B Joseph

Centre for Policy Research

July 10, 2015

This brief lays out a new approach to Indian climate governance. We suggest India’s institutional structure should be aimed at generating and adopting low-carbon development pathways. Doing so implies going beyond energy and emissions policies to also look at deeper economic structures such as patterns of urbanisation, industrialisation, and job creation. We propose a new, independent, non-executive, multi-stakeholder Low-Carbon Development Commission backed by law, to bring both analytical credibility and mechanisms to ensure policy relevance. We further propose the Commission interface with an enhanced set of bodies within the executive branch, interacting through a set of annual reporting requirements and incentives for climate action. By laying out a set of principles, institutions, and mechanisms for interaction, we suggest a path to analytical credible and policy relevant Indian climate governance.

Suggested Citation: Dubash, NK, A.V. Pillai, and P. Bhatia. 2021 Building a Climate-Ready State: Institutions and Governance for a Transformative Low Carbon Development. Policy Brief, Initiative for Climate, Energy, and Environment. New Delhi: Centre for Policy Research. May 2021