BLOGS
Systems Thinking for a People-centered Transition to a Low-carbon Economy
Policymaking is a complex process given the interconnectedness of different sectors. This process becomes more challenging for climate action because of the differing impacts each intervention might have on livelihoods and the economy.
By helping identify opportunities and plan for risks, Systems Thinking can help strengthen political and public support for climate action. In this blog, Arpan Golechha uses a causal loop diagram to showcase systems thinking and its significance in policymaking.
In India, New Solar Parks Can Either Uproot or Uplift Landless Workers
India’s Shift to Low-carbon Construction Must Not Leave Workers Behind
Photo Blogs
Breaking the Mold: Transforming Bihar’s Brick Kilns
Agrivoltaics: Reimagining Land for Better Livelihoods
Conference Proceeding
Addressing vulnerabilities and financing needs for an equitable low-carbon transition
The Conference Proceeding draws from the discussions held during WRI India’s “Cross Country Just Transition Dialogue: Exploring Vulnerabilities and Financing Needs for an Equitable Low Carbon Transition” on the sidelines of COP28 in Dubai.
The Conference Proceeding summarizes participants’ views at the dialogue and highlights the need for place-based studies to inform the just transition discourse and institutional preparedness to engage with questions regarding just transition. It also notes the need to blend finance from private and public sources to fund the social aspects of the transition, such as skilling and safety nets.
Knowledge Products
Macroeconomic Impacts of Long-Term Decarbonization in India: Implications for a Just Transition
India faces the dual challenge of advancing strong climate action while achieving its development goals. Moreover, the low-carbon transition will require a profound transformation of the Indian economy resulting in differing impacts on workers, regions, and communities.
Based on results from the India Energy Policy Simulator, this expert note by Deepthi Swamy and Varun Agarwal presents potential macroeconomic impacts — on economic growth, employment, and tax revenues — in a long-term decarbonization scenario, aligned to India’s 2070 net-zero emissions target, and analyzes the implications of these impacts for a just transition in India.
India’s long-term decarbonization efforts require significant structural changes in the economy as we step up renewable energy and move to a low-carbon development pathway. The current literature discusses the macroeconomic and sectoral but not the distributional impacts of climate action. Since large disparities exist among India’s socioeconomic groups, the low-carbon transition will affect income and social groups differently. To address this gap, this technical note describes a methodology for quantifying household-level impacts across different income groups in India.
It uses the Global Income Distribution Dynamics (GIDD) framework in connection with the macroeconomic Green Economy Model for India (GEM-India). The climate policies are implemented through the macro model, the GEM, and the microsimulation redistributes the effects of the changes at the macroeconomic level amongst income groups and gender in terms of wages, poverty, employment and so forth. This technical note lays out the methodology to link climate policy implementation to household-level income and employment impacts, but not its results.