Paris Agreement and India's INDC: Enhancing Preparedness for Implementation and Tracking of Mitigation Actions, Plans and Policies

TERI Organized a half day consultation on issues related to Paris Agreement and India's INDC. The discussions focused on key steps that would be required to enhance preparedness levels for implementation and tracking of mitigation actions, plans and policies to achieve India’s INDC. In the inaugural session Dr Ajay Mathur, Director General, TERI welcomed all participants and highlighted the new questions which Paris agreement has opened up. He further emphasized that India has put forth a very ambitious INDC and called for just climate action. This was followed by an introductory remark by Shri. Ashok Chawla, Chairman (TERI) empathizing on the fact that this discussion was very timely. Shri Susheel Kumar, Special Secretary, MOEF&CC in his special remarks emphasized that role of multiple actors is important to achieve the INDCs and that adaptation concerns also needs to be addressed in implementing climate policies. Shri Upendra Tripathy, Secretary, MNRE in his special remarks shared his perspective on the challenges and good practices in implementing renewable energy practices.

The technical session centered around two broad questions:
1) what domestic actions, plans and policies will enable India to achieve its INDCs, and
2) what kind of transparency regime could be put in place at the domestic level to measure/track the progress on these actions, plans and policies.

The discussion was moderated by Dr Ritu Mathur, Director (TERI), who later summed up the discussion points into three key messages:
1) India's INDC goals are ambitious,
2) collective effort is required at multiple levels involving different actors to bring about just climate action and
3) low carbon intensive lifestyles through sustainable living.

The discussants included participants from the government, businesses, academia, research organisations/think-tanks amongst others.