Policy Brief

Monitoring of community wastewater for early signalling the spread of COVID-19 in Chennai City

14 Dec 2020
| Ms Mary Abraham
| Dr Paromita Chakraborty
| Dr Girija K Bharat
| Ms Avanti Roy-Basu

Wastewater has emerged as a good indicator for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 as confirmed by several research studies across the globe through the detection of SARSCoV-2 Ribo Nucleic Acid (RNA) in faeces of symptomatic and asymptomatic patients.

Plastic Waste Management: Turning Challenges into Opportunities

02 Dec 2020
| Dr Suneel Pandey
| Mr Sourabh Manuja

Plastics not only are enduring, lightweight, and available at low prices, but also have very good thermal and electrical insulation properties. The versatile properties of various plastic polymers— being water-resistant, non-porous, ductile and malleable—make them suitable for manufacturing a wide range of products that also bring medical and technological advances in our modern society.

Discounting the Climate Future: Social Discount Rate for India's Climate Policy

27 Nov 2020
| Ms Saumya Malhotra

Climate change, from an economic perspective, can be understood as a market failure. The associated risks with this changing climate, as well as impacts on socio-economic systems in form of health, livelihood, food and water security, are projected to be higher with increasing global warming.

Could the National Capital Region serve as a control region for effective air quality management in Delhi?

04 Nov 2020
| Dr Sumit Sharma
| Dr Isha Khanna

Air pollution does not follow administrative boundaries, and needs to be tackled at the regional "airshed" level at which it is caused. Identifying the appropriate candidates for airshed management requires scientific analysis using systematically developed emissions inventories and dispersion models to simulate the impact of the estimated emissions on air quality.

Understanding Perspectives: A Behavioural Study in the Indian Cooling Sector

02 Nov 2020
| Mr Manjeet Singh

The impact of climate change is manifesting itself in increasingly erratic weather patterns, and even these increasing in frequency and severity. Heat waves in the summer months across the hemispheres are becoming more the norm than the exception. The 2019 report by the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated that around 2.3 billion people could be both exposed and vulnerable to heatwave events due to 1.5°C of global warming.

G20 Circular Carbon Economy: Fostering Circularity in Plastics

27 Oct 2020
| Dr Shilpi Kapur
| Mr Souvik Bhattacharjya
| Ms Rachel A. Meidl

Fostering circularity in plastic use is an effective way to reduce contamination of marine and coastal environments with plastics and man-made debris. However, there are many challenges down this path.

G20's role in Marine Biodiversity

27 Oct 2020
| Ms Swati Ganeshan
| Dr Fraddry D Souza

Collectively, Group of Twenty (G20) countries are yet to reach the 10% target set under the 2020 Aichi biodiversity targets - including marine biodiversity - and SDGs. This policy brief explores policy options and best pratices for enhancing Marine Protected Areas (MPA).

Toward a Comprehensive Approach to Youth Empowerment for Climate Action

23 Sep 2020
| Dr Neha
| Dr Leila Dagher
| Dr Miranda A Schreurs

Download This brief focuses on empowering the youth to act on climate change and environmental protection by strengthening formal and informal environmental and sustainability education.

Discussion paper on National Inventory Management System (NIMS) in India - Issues, needs and implementation framework

22 Sep 2020
| Mr R R Rashmi

The paper discusses that a centralized National Inventory Management System (NIMS) in India is the need of the hour and its operational contours should be decided as expeditiously as possible. This is needed not only to compute India's emissions from various sources and sinks comprehensively and correctly, but also fulfill India’s international obligations to track the progress in respect of mitigation related commitments such as economy-wide goal to reduce emissions intensity and the sectoral goals as envisaged under India’s NDC.