Spotlight Activity: India Does Not Have a Well-Defined Process of Quantifying the Amount of Finance Required for Specific Adaptation and Mitigation Actions
India in its INDC has estimated that it would require USD 2.5 trillion (at 2014-15 prices) for achieving its mitigation and adaptation targets by 2030. The Indian case is of a country that is supposedly the largest recipient of global climate finance but has a major in-house commitment for financing its climate programmes. According to a 2014 report of the Climate Policy Initiative, while there is no clarity on exactly how much global climate finance India received, the country has received approvals for over $ 1 billion of the total $ 15.3 billion global climate finance approvals.
India’s Biennial Update Report (BUR) details only the Global Environment Facility as an international source of support. There are references to “other sources of bilateral and multilateral” support in the BUR but the details are not available even though this represents a much larger volume of funding to India in dollar terms, according to the UNFCCC Biennial Assessment and Overview. The Multilateral Development Banks have set up Climate Investment Funds (CIF), which includes the Clean Technology Fund (CTF). The CTF has approved over $750 million for renewable energy projects in India and the Green Climate Fund (GCF) has greenlit just one project in India, a groundwater recharge and solar micro irrigation initiative in Odisha. The GCF is financing $34 million of the total $166 million project cost, with the rest being footed by the state government and the World Bank.
The National Adaptation Fund, that operates under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), India’s nodal negotiating agency, was established in 2014 with a corpus of Rs. 100 crore that ratcheted up to Rs. 350 crore (USD 55.6 million) in 2015. It is reported that within the first two fiscals, starting August 2015, this fund has approved state government projects worth Rs. 251 crore. India’s commitment of its own financial resources to climate change adaptation also sends a signal to donors that external funds will help support and compliment domestic fund allocations.
Status: Right Direction
Looking into the efforts India has already put in place using its own funds and external finance, it deserves a very good rating. However, considering the fact that many institutional and operational mechanisms are yet to be developed for proper assessment, monitoring and accountability of the funds, the lacunae cannot be ignored.
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India has put in many policies and programmes to be able to mobilise climate finance. At the core of it is the National Action Plan on Climate Change and the several State Action Plans. However, with lack of an internationally accepted definition of climate finance, much of the development funds for poverty reduction have been termed as ‘adaptation to climate variability’ in these action plans. In this context, we urge upon you to write to the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Hon’ble Minister MoEFCC, Govt. of India
ps2mefcc@gov.in
Twitter handle of the Ministry: @moefcc
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