Focus on India

India has emerged as a leader in promoting renewable energy development and tackling the mitigation and adaptation challenges of global climate change. The Worldwatch Institute has worked closely with partners in India to advance the country’s ambitious goals of increasing access to clean energy sources and to encourage dialogue among the country’s leading low-carbon development experts. We offer our expertise and experience to Indian decision-makers and communities to bridge knowledge gaps and develop recommendations to overcome barriers to low-carbon development in India.

India’s National Action Plan on Climate Change

In 2008, the Government of India released its National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) which outlines eight missions to address mitigation and adaptation challenges while continuing to prioritize poverty alleviation and improving living standards. The national government has called on states to enact their own State Action Plans to implement the NAPCC goals. The Worldwatch Institute aims to support these missions, encourage stakeholder dialogues, and provide best practice technical and policy recommendations to state and federal governments seeking concrete implementation strategies to realize the NAPCC missions.

Download India's National Action Plan on Climage Change: Part 1

Download India's National Action Plan on Climate Change: Part 2

Major Projects

Low-Carbon Development

Worldwatch conducted interviews with twenty top experts in the Indian low-carbon development field to gain a sense of the current state of thinking and frame the debate. The questions were aimed at insights from ten issue areas: challenges to low-carbon growth, whether low-carbon development is in India’s interest, emissions pathways, the National Solar Mission, the National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency, policies for sustainable business models, opportunities in infrastructure, technology and IPR, international competitiveness and finally international leadership. The document below is a discussion paper based on responses to the interviews conducted.

Download the discussion paper

Event: Strengthening India’s Low Carbon Growth Strategy

On September 13, 2010, Worldwatch partnered with the Centre for Environment Education based in Ahmadabad, India to hold a multi-stakeholder dialogue with 25 leading thinkers and decision-makers on climate and energy from government, academia, non-governmental organizations, and the private sector. The dialogue featured the results of Worldwatch interviews with top Indian experts on low-carbon development, and examined opportunities and policy recommendations for renewable energy development, energy efficiency improvements, green building codes, clean energy financing, and technology innovation.

Climate & Energy Director Alexander Ochs gave the keynote speech. He thanked the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Protection and Nuclear Safety (BMU) for its support and emphasized that the initiative is more than a one day workshop but that Worldwatch and Center for Environment Education (CEE) plan for a long-term partnership. In his speech he showed understanding for India’s position on equitable share of greenhouse gas emissions rights based on per capita and historical responsibility. He emphasized that if India continues to succeed in demonstrating climate leadership at home and remains on a low-carbon path, this would put enormous pressure on other countries to increase their efforts. Download the document below to read a briefing from the workshop.

Download the workshop notes

Worldwatch Publications

State of the World 2009: Into a Warming World

Book Launched in Pune on October 6, 2009 in partnership with Janwani and MCCIA.

Worldwatch’s State of the World report has been a benchmark for discussions on various issues of sustainability, and the annual volume acts as a platform to launch further discussion, study, and research. The Indian Edition of the 2009 issue was launched by the Centre for Environment Education (CEE).
The launch of the Indian edition took place in cities across the country, including Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Lucknow, Orissa and Pune. While the larger issues relating to climate change were discussed, each launch event focused on specific themes. The theme for the Pune launch was ‘Cities'.

State of the World 2006 – Special Focus: China and India

"The western model of growth that India and China wish to emulate is intrinsically toxic. It uses huge resources—energy and materials—and generates enormous waste. The industrialized world has mitigated the adverse impacts of wealth generation by investing huge amounts of money. But... it remains many steps behind the problems it creates. India and China have no choice but to reinvent the development trajectory."

-Sunita Narain
Director, Centre for Science and Environment, New Delhi, India

State of the World 2006 provides a special focus on China and India and their impact on the world as major consumers of resources and polluters of local and global ecosystems. The report explains the critical need for both countries to "leapfrog" the technologies, policies, and even the cultures that now prevail in many western countries for the sake of global sustainability—and reports on some of the strategies that China and India are starting to implement.