'Empower the marginalised to ensure success of climate plan'

Several civil society groups have batted for empowerment of the most marginalised sections to ensure success of the country's proposed climate action plan -- Intended Nationally Designated Contributions (INDCs).
The recommendations demand that the focus of INDCs, which are to be submitted by all participating countries at the global climate negotiations to be held in Paris later this year, must be on the marginalised people.
"Given the large number of poor and dispossessed in the country, India's INDCs for adaptation and mitigation will need to ensure that the poorest of the poor are resilient and able to adapt. And India will have to follow a development path that avoids both unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions as also erosion of development gains due to climate shocks," said Aditi Kapoor, Director of Alternative Futures.

Zeenat Niazi, Vice President of Development Alternatives, said India's INDCs will need to ensure different sections of the society are able to adapt to climate change.
"India is a highly stratified society with different groups having very different adaptive capacities and vulnerabilities like class, caste, ethnic background, age, geographical locale, age and gender. India's INDCs will (need to) factor in these differentiations to ensure that the 'last' person is resilient and able to adapt to climate change," Niazi said.
A two-day consultation was also organised jointly by Climate Action Network South Asia, Alliance for Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction, Alternative Futures, and Development Alternatives, in partnership with the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to deliberate upon the country's climate action plan.

"It was organised to bring together knowledge and experiences of government officers, practitioners and researchers on adaptation and disaster resilience to inform India's INDCs currently being put together by the Ministry," Niazi said.
The consultation focused on three key areas -- food security and agriculture; water security; and forests and biodiversity. Disaster resilience was kept central to all discussions.
"Empowerment of the most marginalised people will be critical to local adaptation strategies as India is a highly stratified society with different groups with very different adaptive capacities and vulnerabilities," Niazi said.