ABSTRACT
The phenomenon of climate change as a scientific reality is now widely accepted around the world.1 The adverse impacts of climate change are seen as posing significant challenges to the survival, safety and well-being of communities as well as states in most parts of the world. Calls for coordinated action at the international level in order to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change have become increasingly louder over the decades. Consequently, the realm of international environmental politics is teeming with a diverse variety of actors. These include states, international organizations such as the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), local and global media organizations, lobbying networks like the Climate Action Network (CAN) (including environmental groups like Greenpeace International, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Environmental Defence Fund (EDF)), and epistemic communities such as the Working Groups (WGs) of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). These actors and their agencies may be driven by different sets of interests, which may or may not overlap, and each may wield varying degrees of social and political influence in shaping actions through public policy or other means in the area of climate change at the local, national and international levels. In India too, the debate on climate change and how it should be tackled has
involved a range of voices – state actors such as senior officials and relevant state agencies, as well as non-state actors (NSAs) such as epistemic communities, thinktanks, civil society groups and the media. Many of these actors are often part of wider policy networks or communities focused on climate change and related issues.2 This chapter analyses the role played by key scientific policy communities (SPCs) in India in shaping the discourse on climate change at the national level, and in influencing the country’s National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) launched in 2008. It begins by exploring the nature of SPCs as epistemic communities, and the perceived security implications of climate change for states and sub-state groups in South Asia. The chapter then focuses on the key dynamics and implications of climate change in India. It investigates the development of the discourse on climate change in the country, and how it has increasingly been linked with the survival, safety and well-being of those most vulnerable to the
securitizing moves by Indian state representatives constructing climate change as a threat to the people of India, and the articulations and efforts of two SPCs in particular – The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) and the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE). The analysis demonstrates that Securitization Theory as formulated by the Copenhagen School is most effective in identifying NSAs as securitizing agents and security practitioners when they are situated directly within relevant policy-making circles and have direct access to authorities of the state.
