




































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 3 (1): 155–159, January 2020 

 
BOOK REVIEW 
  

Policy and Politics in India in the Age of Global 
Warming 
 

Rohit Jha  
 
Navroz K Dubash, ed. 2019. India in a Warming World: Integrating Climate 
Change and Development, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-
19-949873-4, 576 pp, Rs. 1995 (Hardbound) 
 

The hell fires of 2019-20 that engulfed 
Australia and incinerated large swathes of the 
country tell us that the impacts of climate 
change and global warming are clearly upon 
us. Small wonder then that climate change 
activists often describe their challenges in 
dystopian imagery with allusions to melting 
glaciers, boiling oceans, burning forests or 
the extinction of entire species. Navroz 
Dubash‟s edited volume India in a Warming 
World, however, is pointedly against a turn to 
extreme alarm. The collection of essays with 
an informed and measured introduction, 
instead, attempts a balance between careful 
research and meaningful climate activism. At 

                                                        
 Research Assistant on project titled „Reconceptualizing Rivers in South Asia as Histories of 
the Biological Pulse‟, Kyoto University; 198F, Utsav Apartment, Rohini Sec 18, New Delhi-
110089; rohitjha95067@gmail.com.  

Copyright © Jha 2020. Released under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 
International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0) by the author.  

Published by Indian Society for Ecological Economics (INSEE), c/o Institute of Economic 
Growth, University Enclave, North Campus, Delhi 110007.  

ISSN: 2581-6152 (print); 2581-6101 (web). 

DOI: https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i1.103  

https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v3i1.103


Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [156] 

heart, consequently, is the realistic, if not pragmatic, attempt to debate and 
explore how development goals can be achieved without warming the 
planet beyond 2 degree Celsius.  

The essays in the volume are broadly clubbed under two distinct, though 
conceptually overlapping, themes: a) reviews and b) perspectives. The 
review chapters are written by scholars from various disciplines such as 
climate science, science and technology studies, law and sociology. The 
perspective chapters, on the other hand, are drawn from a mix of climate 
change activists and policy makers. Under the two broad themes, the essays 
are then further grouped into five sections: a) climate change impacts; b) 
international debates and negotiations; c) politics; d) policies; and e) climate 
and development. 

In the first section, the readers are offered a nuanced understanding of the 
various climate models and the presumed impacts of climate change on 
flora and fauna of India. As J. Srinivasan in his essay notes, for example, 
that though there is a great demand in India for credible predictions about 
climate change impacts, the techniques to acquire such capacity is still a 
„work in progress‟ (p. 30). Through an „event attribution‟ analysis, Krishna 
Achuta Rao and Friederike Otto underline three case studies ─ Chennai 
floods (2015); heat waves in Andhra Pradesh (2015) and extreme heat in 
Phalodi, Rajasthan (2016) ─ two of these cases, Chennai and Phalodi, 
showed that counterfactual (or non-manmade changes) were the cause of 
climate change as opposed to factual (or anthropogenic or man-made 
changes). Nagraj Adve in a meticulous study emphasizes the importance of 
ethnographic approaches for capturing and describing climate change 
impacts on the ground. Adve argues that the inaccuracy of climate models 
at district levels combined with poorly informed development plans can 
aggravate climate change impact women, mostly from underprivileged 
communities, facing „the maximum burnt of unplanned development, 
global warming and climate change‟ (p. 75). This section enriches our 
understanding of climate models, the dynamics and thermodynamics of 
climate change and the impact of climate change across regions and 
communities.  

The second section takes us behind closed doors and up close into 
international negotiations and debates on climate change. The writers in this 
section Anil Aggarwal and Sunita Narain, Tejal Kanitkar and T. Jayaram, 
Sandeep Sengupta, Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, Shsyam Saran, Ashok 
Lavasa, D. Raghunandan, Lavanya Rajmani, Ajay Mathur and Anunabha 
Ghosh uncover for us the many political and policy interests that have thus 
far shaped climate change negotiations at the international level. The writers 
in this section also appear to jointly share the view that most outcomes 



[157] Rohit Jha 

from climate negotiations at the international level have thus far tended to 
be biased in favour of the developed world. The strategies of tackling 
climate change at the international level and its impact for developing 
countries like India is brilliantly brought out in this section. The point of 
contestation is whether we as a planet should follow the equality principle 
based on the emission we emit in the present or should we follow that 
equity principle which takes the historical emissions of all the countries into 
account. It‟s an interesting debate. The readers concerned about climate 
change and its international politics will surely find it captivating and 
revealing.  

The third section focuses on the politics of climate change at national level. 
It discusses the role of civil society organizations, large and small business 
corporations, labour organizations and the media. Pradip Swarnakar points 
out that civil society organizations mostly work within two strategic 
frameworks: the climate sustainability framework which is „apolitical‟ and 
the climate justice framework which is „political‟. Swarnakar examines in 
considerable detail the collaborative network building activity of these two 
types of CSOs and their methods for enabling mass participation and 
mobilization. The chapter by Shankar Venkateshwaran and Mukund Rajan, 
on the other hand, looks at how business organizations attempt to address 
climate change actions. The relationship between profitability and 
sustainability, they underline, has become a key concern for several Indian 
businesses. According to them, such concerns have over the years 
translated into more investments under Corporate Social Responsibility 
(CSR) and the appointment of Chief Sustainability Officers (CSO) in 
several major Indian companies. However, financially few investor 
communities in India are factoring sustainability into their business models 
compared to their global counterparts. Ashim Roy, Benny Kuruvilla and 
Ankit Bharadwaj map out the debates on the „transition‟ by Indian labour, 
currently embedded in the carbon economy, towards a green economy. 
India‟s „right to develop‟, they argue, will need to be aligned with achieving 
public and democratic control of energy and social infrastructure (housing, 
water, and sanitation). Thus, in their opinion, the role of trade unions and 
public ownership of production will be vital in addition to the 
implementation of responsible climate action plans by Indian businesses. 
The media, fourth pillar of democracy, is also important in raising 
awareness around all these issues. The mainstreaming of climate change in 
media, as Anu Jogesh points out, has moved from merely focusing on 
international climate negotiations towards more keenly following up on 
domestic challenges and politics. Her emphasis, however, is mainly 
restricted to the English media reporting from 2010 to 2017. She 



Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [158] 

acknowledges lack of review of regional papers, which are much larger in 
their numbers and readership, as a limitation.  

The chapters on policy suggest that the implementation of climate change 
plans in India tend to get entangled in the federal structure of the Indian 
state with notable disconnect between national and regional goals. Koyel 
Kumar Mandal looks at the issue of climate finance, whereas Ambuj Sagar 
examines the transition to climate technology. Both these authors draw 
attention to lack of clarity in the role of climate finance and the adoption of 
climate technologies, especially in the planning efforts. Elizabeth Gogoi 
discusses the status of State Climate Change Planning through a study of 
State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCC) that was first drafted in 
2009. As of now 32 states and union territories have approved these plans 
and their implementation process has begun. Gogoi looks at Assam, Bihar, 
Chattishgarh, Kerela, Maharasthra and Odisha that are part of the „Action 
on Climate Today‟ (ACT), which uses SAPCC as a starting point to support 
climate change planning. All these states seem to be in the process of 
tailoring and adjusting the national action plan to their local conditions. 
Navroz K Dubash and Anu Jogesh take the point further and highlight the 
intricacies of state climate plans in five states: Himachal Pradesh, 
Karnataka, Sikkim, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha. These states provide us 
with a polyphonic discourse on the inner workings of climate policy. 
Though some states are working towards adjusting their climate plan to 
local environments, there, nevertheless, seems to be an institutional lack of 
sorts in many states. As an official from Odisha, in an interview said: “we 
are a weak institutional sector, whether environment or climate change, our 
strengths don‟t lie in institutional capacities” (p. 363). This statement seems 
to bring out the sordid ground reality of climate institutions in India. As 
Navroz Dubash and Shibani Ghosh, in the first chapter in this section, put 
it: “the past decade has witnessed a rise in climate institutions in India, but 
it has been a reactive and ad hoc process” (p. 342). 

The last section is dedicated to the issues of development and climate 
change. While Lele and Krishnaswamy argue for the „sequestration method‟ 
in the context of forests, Kumar and Vishvanathan call for the 
mainstreaming of climate change adaptation for the entire agriculture 
sector. Rohan Arthur argues for a coordinated and planned approach to 
tackle rising sea levels and Veena Srinivasan warns of the consequences of 
increased variability with more droughts and dry days which will impact the 
access to water for many. The need for district-level institutional 
frameworks based on community lines seems to emerge as the shared 
vision of the contributors of this section.. Integrating development with 
climate change in other words, can be the best bet to overcome a situation 



[159] Rohit Jha 

that is otherwise mired with political skirmishes, institutional weaknesses, 
mis-communication and lack of sectoral coordination. Outlining pathways 
for the democratic control of resources and the planned implementation of 
credible strategies for dealing with climate change impacts, hence, is an 
urgent requirement.  

In sum, the collection of essays provides us an up to date understanding of 
the climate change debate in India. The message, in essence, is that 
policymakers and political decision making can be involved in a productive 
dialogue and need not always be seen as antagonistic and locked in zero 
sum games. Though India‟s social and economic worlds are undoubtedly 
made up of complex and often conflicting interests, sustainability challenges 
can most likely be met, as India in a Warming World tells us, by informed and 
considered interventions rather than by alarm and knee jerk reactions.  

The essays in this volume, moreover, besides being ably supported by an 
insightful introductory essay by Navroz Dubash, are helpfully 
complimented by a range of infographics, tables, facts, anecdotes and 
empirical data. The reader will surely be engaged as much with the 
accessible style and presentation of the book as they will be with its content. 
This book is highly recommended, and let‟s say even necessary, for anyone 
who is looking to understand climate change in India and wants to do 
something about it. 

 

 

 


