







































Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal 6 (1): 133-136, January 2023 

BOOK REVIEW 

Discerning Global and Local of Climate Change in Indian 
Context 

Alankar* 

 
Nagraj Adve, Global Warming in India: Science, Impacts, and Politics, Eklavya 

Foundation Bhopal, 2022 

Nagraj Adve’s Global Warming in 
India: Science, Impacts, and Politics 
is a booklet-length effort that 
aims to make the complexities 
of climate change and global 
warming accessible to school 
and college students, teachers, 
and activists. The emphasis 
throughout the booklet is on 
bridging what Adve considers to 
be a growing chasm in the 
understanding of climate change 
between abstract high science 
and people’s popular 
perceptions about challenges on 
the ground. 

The first chapter, titled 
“Understanding the Science”, 
explains in a patient and 
accessible manner several of the 
technical aspects related to the 

 
* Assistant Professor, Department of Political Science, Ram Lal Anand College 

University of Delhi & Researcher, Sarai Programme Centre for the Study of Developing 
Societies. alankarsy@gmail.com 
Copyright © Alankar 2023. 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.v6i1.890  

 

mailto:alankarsy@gmail.com
https://doi.org/10.37773/ees.v6i1.890


 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [134] 

debate on global warming—in particular, how different greenhouse gases 
(GHGs), such as carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides, and others, 
combine to produce the green-house effect. In North India, this would be 
referred to as a razai effect, the equivalent of trapping heat under a thick 
cotton blanket, preventing it from escaping. Such, in fact, has been the 
intensity of human-induced emissions, that, by 2020, we reached an 
alarming build-up of 412 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the 
atmosphere — “which is the highest it has been in 2 million years” (Adve 
2022, 13). 

Having equipped us with some of the relevant technical terminology, 
Chapter 2 unpacks the increasingly complicated politics around climate 
change. Adve states that there are essentially three frameworks within which 
the issue of blame and responsibility for the unbridled emission of GHGs is 
often discussed. The first is a discrete sector-wise measurement of GHG 
emissions—by industry, agriculture, infrastructure, transport, and energy. 
The second framework weighs the likely differences in terms of carbon 
footprint between rural livelihoods and urban lifestyles. And the third, 
which is also by far the most contentious, concerns deciding who the top 
emitter nations are. While Adve is even-handed in how he discusses the 
various strengths and weaknesses of each approach, the actual emphasis of 
the chapter is on the thesis that “the roots of global warming lie in the 
inherent drivers of the world economy—maximizing profits and growth—
and multiple inequalities of income and wealth” (23). In effect, it is the 
underlying logics of capitalism and economic growth that need to be 
discerned in order to make sense of the larger picture of GHG emissions. 

Chapter 3 shifts the discussion to tracking how climate change impacts 
affect people and ecosystems. Erratic weather patterns in a now rapidly 
overheating planet affect different strata of society (and environments) 
differently, and Adve emphasises that such varied consequences can, and 
often do, further exacerbate existing political and economic inequalities 
within and among nations. This chapter, in particular, offers several 
examples from across India to demonstrate how global warming is affecting 
and altering seasons, biodiversity, the monsoons, and agriculture. 
Coincidentally, the author of this book review is associated with a trans-
disciplinary research project, TAPESTRY,1 the findings of which also 
correspond to the findings in the booklet under review regarding the 

 
1 “Transformation as Praxis: Exploring Socially Just and Transdisciplinary Pathways to 
Sustainability in Marginal Environments (TAPESTRY).” 
https://t2sresearch.org/project/tapestry/. 

https://t2sresearch.org/project/tapestry/


[135] Alankar 

 
 

impacts of climate change on marginalized communities in different parts 
of India. 

Chapter 4 critically evaluates the policies and actions of the Indian 
government vis-à-vis climate change. Specifically, Adve focuses on the 
various national- and state-level climate action plans—solar energy, water 
management, sustainable agriculture, energy efficiency projects, sustainable 
habitats, and the Green India Mission. The government’s strategy is 
essentially two pronged: (a) mitigation, which refers to large-scale 
infrastructural and technological efforts to decarbonize energy and 
economic activities in general, and (b) adaptation, involving various 
programmes that help people cope with changing weather patterns or even 
harness some of the new opportunities that may arise from climatic shifts. 
Interestingly, Adve points out that mitigation efforts tend to attract more 
support in state plans because they also happen to be financially profitable 
and allow for private collaboration, whereas adaptation gets short shrift 
because it needs government spending and is mostly meant to cushion the 
poor against climate change impacts. 

Chapter 4 ends with a useful mapping of the larger geopolitical scenario 
that has been shaping climate change negotiations. While briefly touching 
upon some of the main points debated during the different rounds of the 
Conference of the Parties (COP) meetings—from Kyoto (1997) to Paris 
(2015)—Adve is keen to underline that it is the industrially advanced 
countries of the North that are reluctant to make meaningful commitments 
to reduce emissions. On the other hand, the poorer nations of the South, 
such as Bolivia, Cuba, and Ecuador, seem to be making genuine efforts to 
tackle global warming–induced ecological challenges. 

The final chapter elucidates how individual and collective efforts can be 
mobilized to tackle climate change challenges. While at the individual level, 
several consumption choices can be pursued, such as choosing to install 
solar panels or buying energy efficient cars, collective or people-led 
struggles for climate justice, on the other hand, will involve more than 
scaling up local efforts. Crafting global solidarities on the theme of climate 
change, in fact, will greatly depend not only on how the inner logic of 
capitalism is challenged, but crucially also on how meaningful demands are 
formulated for decarbonizing the economy and enabling the transition to 
non–fossil fuel energy. 

In sum, Global Warming in India: Science, Impacts, and Politics is a very useful 
contribution. It is accessibly written, and in a compelling way, untangles 
many of the most complicated aspects of the climate change debate. But 



 Ecology, Economy and Society–the INSEE Journal [136] 

crucially as well, we finally have the teaching textbook on global warming 
that would bring the student community up to speed on the pivotal 
questions concerning planetary sustainability in their generation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 


