The India Climate Observatory

Commentary, action and research on climate and development in India

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About

What is Climate Challenge India ?

Climate Challenge India is an independent, non-political mobilisation effort to spread awareness and promote action on climate change in India.

The first effort of its type in India, Climate Challenge India (CCI) was initiated in early-2007 by the Centre for Social Markets (CSM).

CCI seeks to build a new climate of hope and opportunity on climate change. The initiative’s starting point is that countries such as India can no longer afford to sit back, but must take leadership on climate change out of enlightened self-interest.
In December 2007, Climate Challenge India was hailed as one of the world’s top five climate campaigns and profiled at the UN Climate Summit in Bali, Indonesia.

In 2009, the focus of the initiative will be to build the conditions necessary for a successful outcome to the crucial United Nations negotiations on climate change (COP15) in Copenhagen in December.

What is the ‘Climate Challenge India’ Platform ?

The Climate Challenge India Platform brings together people of all ages and backgrounds to rapidly advance India’s response to climate change through a variety of measures. These include research and education; advocacy and campaigns; business and enterprise; arts and culture; practical and professional action; science and technology development.Platform members commit to:

  • Educating themselves, their organisaations and constituencies about climate change
  • Determining their carbon footprint and reducing it
  • Helping vulnerable communities adapt to climate change
  • Promoting the development of products and processes that are carbon neutral or carbon positive
  • Supporting science-based and equitable policies and measures that will reduce national and international greenhouse gas emissions

The Platform amounts to a new force for change demonstrating that India need wait for no-one to lead on climate change. Taken together, each of these efforts will help reduce and manage India’s vulnerability to climate change, and set her on the path to a low-carbon future with greater chance of achieving security and prosperity for her people and the world.

What is the Climate Challenge India Portal?

The Climate Challenge India Portal is the information hub and the gateway to action for the Climate Challenge India community.

Developed as a public resource by the Centre for Social Markets, the Portal is designed as a one-stop-shop on climate change and India issues. It seeks to raise awareness, promote information exchange, and foster networking and partnership in the search for solutions to climate change.

 

About the India Climate Portal

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The India Climate Portal promotes critical thinking about and fresh analysis of climate change and its impacts on India and the South Asian region. This approach has come about through grassroots work, civic dialogue and engagements with society, by the project supporters. The objective is to draft a strong domestic agenda that will realistically determine the risks of a changing climate while identifying opportunities for equitable transformations that enable us to live sustainably with the impacts.

In the pages of the India Climate Portal you will find a number of resources including publications such as the monthly India Climate Watch bulletin, the annual Who’s Who in Climate Change in India, the Discussion Paper series; and films such as In Good Company – profiling corporate leadership on climate change in India, and City Dialogues.

This project is an effort to spread awareness and promote action on climate change in India, to help build a new cooperation and sensibility on climate change. To partner with the India Climate Portal, to share your initiatives and reports, to collaborate on programmes and cooperate on studies and events, please write to Viva Kermani [ vivakermani at gmail dot com ].