NORGLOBAL-Norge - Global partner

Researchers Aamodt, Fernandes, Narayanan and Bang have written an article that explore why India takes a hard-line stance towards international commitments at the same time as it implements stronger climate action at home.The paper is in the submission stage, and will be submitted to the Journal of Environment and Development by the end of February 2017. Project partners at IIT Bombay (Narayanan and Fernandes)have written two additional papers on the subject of climate policy development in India, which were submitted to peer-review journals during autumn 2016. They also presented their work at two conferences in India: Eleventh Kerala Environment Congress 2015, and the International Conference on Climate Change Resilience 2015 at Pondicherry University. An article on reforms for climate action in the agricultural sector has been finalized. The author team (Tankha, Fernandes, Narayanan and Rauken) analyze if climate change mitigation and adaptation can be addressed without in the process creating losers who would mobilize against proposed reforms and thus prevent climate positive actions. The research is based on current agricultural policy and practice in India where poorly constructed and maintained canal infrastructure and heavily subsidized electricity supplied to agricultural consumers has led farmers to become excessively dependent upon groundwater to irrigate their fields, leading to rapidly falling groundwater tables and financial crisis in the electricity sector, and excessive emissions. Political sensitivities and institutional weaknesses made reforming the sector difficult. Technologies such as drip irrigation can facilitate more efficient water and energy use, but institutional and cultural hurdles prevent widespread adoption. We use institutional and sociological approaches to analyze how these hurdles can be overcome to deploy Pareto Optimal reforms. Field research was conducted in the Indian state of Maharashtra among sugarcane farmers and with key public officials in the agriculture and electricity sectors. The article is submitted to a refereed journal. Karstensen, Roy, Pal, Peters and Andrew have submitted an article on 'India's emissions in a globalizing economy'to a peer-reviewed journal. In the paper, they quantify the drivers of India's emissions from several perspectives, how several factors (population, GDP, energy use and carbon intensity) are changing the annual emissions, and how they contribute to global warming on a sectoral level. They discuss India's background and current state, and analyze India's energy and climate policy, and future emissions. In July. INDGLOB researchers participated in the event 'India's Global Climate Agenda: New Paradigms, New Leadership?' organized by the IDSA-PRIO Institutional Cooperation in Oslo. Glen Peters (CICERO) and Joyashree Roy (Jadavpur University) presented results from the IndGLOB project. In spring 2016, work began on transforming a long conference paper manuscript into a compact manuscript suitable for the broader circulation, peer-reviewed Indian journal Economic and Political Weekly. The article is now submitted to the journal. As an extension of this work, Sprinz and Prasad undertook preliminary research on two pertinent financial issues regarding the rollout of renewables in India. Prasad and Sprinz did fieldwork in Mumbai and New Delhi, including interviews with the financial industry, technology developers, and energy system providers of PV installations, national ministries, multilateral banks, NGOs, and researchers. The data material underpins article 2 where we provide regional predictions for New Delhi state related to financial issues crucial for enabling implementation of the India-wide 100GW renewables goal of the Modi government. Sprinz and Prasad now work on the new dataset to produce a CICERO report and/or a research note. We organized a public debate at COP21 in Paris on India's and China's climate policies - "Where are the big emitters heading?" The event was co-organized by CICERO and CICEP, with speakers Glen Peters (CICERO), Liu Qiang (Chinese delegation), Iselin Stensdal (Fridtjof Nansen Institute), Navroz Dubash (Center for Policy Research) and Farhana Yamin (Track 0). INDGLOB research findings on Indian climate policies and emission trajectories were the basis of discussions. We discussed priorities in India - emissions or poverty reduction, as well as India's renewable energy investment announced at COP21. Finally, we have developed a press database of over 100 Indian journalists, based on existing press contacts of the various project partners.

The project will identify and explore domestic and international drivers and barriers in the climate policy development in India. At the domestic level, climate and energy policies cannot be adopted and implemented without critical levels of support from key interest groups, voters, and industries. We will study relationships between such actors and veto players in political institutions. At the international level, the development of the BASIC cooperation in the international climate negotiations has cle arly affected India's national interest and strategy in international climate policy. We will study the two-level game between the international and national levels of policymaking. Previous research on Indias climate policy has mainly studied adaptati on and mitigation policy challenges separately. In contrast, this project will contribute to the literature by exploring India's challenge to simultaneously address mitigation and adaptation to climate change. To this effect, project papers will examine d omestic policy drivers both qualitatively in case studies (including ethnographic, frame and document analysis), and quantitatively in GHG emissions models. We will also apply this broad set of methods to assess the effect of the BASIC cooperation on Indi a's national interest and strategic goals in domestic and international climate policy. Finally, we will apply our findings to identify likely medium-term policy trajectories for India's climate and energy policy. We aim to publish five peer-reviewed pap ers in international journals. The project group consists of internationally renowned experts within the field, and will support two junior female researchers. All project participants will be involved in networking, conferences, courses and outreach acti vities. We will develop a communication plan to ensure good communication within the reseach team, and dialogue with policymakers and stakeholders in Norway and India.