The Climate Change, Urbanization and Sustainability (CCUS) team representing a vibrant part of ICRIER’s research team, conducting projects related to climate change adaptation, climate finance, clean mobility, critical minerals, industrial decarbonizations, climate negotiations and much more. Comprising of professionals from varied backgrounds, including economists, engineers, and environmentalists, the team provides a firm foundation of expertise to facilitate informed policy advisory.
In addition, the CCUS work programme aims at providing evidence-led research for an informed energy and climate negotiation stance for India. Much of the research on energy and climate strategy in India is occurring in a silo-ed fashion with a narrow focus on national boundaries.
Even the papers that indeed look into the strategic aspects of the country’s interaction with the world at various climate and energy negotiation forums, take a qualitative approach rather than an evidence-backed quantitative one. Thus, ICRIER’s SustainAnalytics aims to intertwine these strands of international strategy with empirical modelling so as to give a 360-degree view of what India’s stance should be, how are other countries placed with respect to this stance and what could be the potential gains from it. Our multi-disciplinary team, with seasoned experts, is well placed to analyse optimal negotiation stances, maintain consistency of ideology and thinking and provide resiliency to strategy surprises.
Drawing inspiration from our mission statement, much of the work by the vertical has focused on answering key policy questions, developing tailored strategies, and providing data-driven insights to support energy and climate research. In particular, concerted efforts have been made in the past year to unravel clean energy supply chain disruptions, be it in terms of labour market frictions (short-term), critical raw mineral availability (medium-term), or technology development for decarbonisation (long-term). The team has been actively involved in projects that directly inform policymakers spanning multiple line ministries and departments, including but not limited to the Ministry of Power (MoP), Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF & CC), Ministry of Steel (MoS), Ministry of Mines (MoM), Niti Aayog, and so on. Additionally, CCUS has also had the privilege of lending support to the Indian Government on matters pertaining to international climate change negotiations such as the G20 Energy Sustainability Working Group (ESWG) and the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) as well as contributing to preparing India’s Third National Communication and Initial Adaptation Communication submission to the UNFCCC.