India released its National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) on 30th June, 2008, to outline its strategy to meet the Climate Change challenge. The National Action Plan advocates a strategy that promotes, firstly, the adaptation to Climate Change and secondly, further enhancement of the ecological sustainability of India's development path. India's National Action Plan stresses that maintaining a high growth rate is essential for increasing the living standards of the vast majority of people of India and reducing their vulnerability to the impacts of climate change. Accordingly, the Action Plan identifies measures that promote the objectives of sustainable development of India while also yielding to benefits for addressing climate change.
There are eight National Missions which form the core of the National Action Plan, representing the multi-pronged long-term strategy. These missions have been formed by combining several ongoing programmes with the ones newly formulated.
- National Solar Mission has a twin objective - to contribute to India's long term energy security as well as its ecological security. We are living in a world of rapidly depleting fossil fuel resources and access to conventional energy resources such as oil, gas and coal is becoming increasingly constrained. The rapid development and deployment of renewable energy is imperative in this context and in view of high solar radiation over the country solar energy provides a long term sustainable solution.
- National Mission on Enhanced Energy Efficiency under the Ministry of Power.
- National Mission on Sustainable Habitat will target improvements in energy efficiency in buildings, management of solid waste and accelerating modal shift to mass transport.
- The National Water Mission’s main objective is “conservation of water, minimizing wastage and ensuring its more equitable distribution both across and within states through integrated water resources development and management”.
- The purpose of the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Eco-system is to get a complete understanding of whether and to what extent the Himalayan glaciers are in recession and how the problem can be addressed. The other major objective is to establish an observational and monitoring network for the Himalayan environment to assess freshwater resources and health of ecosystem.
- The draft of the National Mission for a Green India aims to address climate change by enhancing carbon sinks in sustainably managed forests and by adaptation of vulnerable ecosystems and forest-dependent local communities to changing climate. It builds on the Prime Minister's Green India campaign for afforestation and the national target of increasing land area under forest cover. It is to be implemented on degraded forest land through Joint Forest Management Committees set up under State Departments of Forests. These Committees will promote direct action by communities.
- The National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture aims to make Indian agriculture more resilient to climate change by identifying new varieties of crops, especially thermal resistant ones and alternative cropping patterns. This is to be supported by integration of traditional knowledge and practical systems, information technology and biotechnology, as well as new credit and insurance mechanisms.
- National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change strives to work with the global community in research and technology development and collaboration through a variety of mechanisms and, in addition, will also have its own research agenda supported by a network of dedicated climate change related institutions and universities and a Climate Research Fund. The Mission will also encourage private sector initiatives for developing innovative technologies for adaptation and mitigation.
While these National Missions will serve as umbrella organisations in their respective fields, some existing schemes and programmes towards sustainable development that are being undertaken by the government are:
- Carrying Capacity Based Regional Development Planning .
- Grand in Aid Scheme for Development and Promotion of Clean Technology.
- Grant in Aid Scheme for Voluntary Agencies
- Green Architecture by School of Planning and Architecture
- Sustainable Development Framework for mining
- Convergence for Sustainable Development
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