Sustainable Development Insights from India

This volume is a collection of essays that provide a comprehensive coverage of multiple aspects of the discourse on environment, development and sustainability. It is designed to bring in a host of perspectives highlighting the synergies and the trade-offs in this debate, showcasing research along with policy implications of putting research into use.

The global discussion on sustainability paints the broad canvas for this book. This volume aims to probe some contemporary issues that will help in understanding the sustainability narrative in India. The topics span over a host of questions on energy, environment, natural resources and related constituents of development. The discourse further extends to the role of economic modelling, public policy debates, political intervention, stakeholders' response, community participation and so on. The discussions are often based on empirical support, review of existing literature as well as policy analysis. With an ultimate aim to understand the overall development narrative of the people of India, the discourse takes in its ambit the nuances of resource utilisation, economic growth, COVID-19 impacts, competitiveness and market structures, urbanization, sectoral reforms, environmental hazards, climate change, pollution, natural resource accounting and management to name a few.

The book is divided into four sections, namely, The Big Picture: Evolving Perspectives; The Energy Scenario: Dilemmas and Opportunities; Sustainability Cross-Cuts: Developmental Aspects and Externality Empirics: Knowledge and Practice. The first section contains commentaries on the overarching themes of economic growth, development and sustainability. It presents some emerging perspectives on the developmental crisis that has emerged through the environmental lens with additional focus on the need for inclusion of creativity, knowhow, technology and financial resources to achieve the ambitious SDG targets. The secondsection brings out the dilemmas and opportunities in the energy sector, that has been a key player in discussions of sustainability, especially for India where significant technological advances in conventional forms of energy supply coexists with fairly low levels of per capita energy consumption and energy security is a key challenge. The section on sustainability crosscuts attempts to highlight the problems and processes of mainstreaming the sustainability question into conventional thinking through the concepts of a circular economy, green accounting techniques, institutional and governance structures, public policy and inclusive growth, amongst others. The last section presents some empirical studies on environmental externalities, the unaccounted environmental effects of economic production and consumption and finally the behavioural aspects of the stakeholders that are crucial in the larger narrative of sustainable development.

This edited volume contains contributions of reputed scholars from various Indian universities, research institutions and professionals from outside academia, who are proven experts in their fields. The link between policy, practice, and well-being of the large vulnerable population of India is the major focus of enquiry that will help researchers, practitioners and policy planners in conducting further research in energy, environment, resource and linked areas of development economics. General readers with an active interest in energy, environment, and economic development are also likely to find this book an interesting read, especially in the times of several environmental challenges facing humankind.

Auteur

Dr. Purnamita Dasgupta, Chair Professor in Environmental & Resource Economics at the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi, is currently on leave as Theme Leader, Ecosystem Services, ICIMOD. She has been visiting professor at University of Cambridge, UK and Johns Hopkins University, USA. Her teaching and research focus on the relationship between environment and economic development. Her research assignments include CLA of the IPCC and IPSP, author HIMAP, Advisor IPCC's Scientific Steering Group on Economics, Costing and Ethics; CARIAA and the Association of Commonwealth Universities, UK. She has contributed to modelling for India's NDCs and NATCOM processes, drafting regulation on e-waste, natural resource accounting for the CAG, Supreme Court committee on NPV for Forests, committee to evolve environmental standards, among others. She has published in journals such as Climatic Change, PLOS One, Environment and Development Economics, Environmental Development, Environmental Health Perspectives.

Dr. Anindita Roy Saha is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, Head of the Department of Environmental Studies and Coordinator of the Centre for Earth Studies at Indraprastha College for Women, University of Delhi. She is a visiting faculty at the Department of Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, University of Delhi. She has been associated with Jawaharlal Nehru University, Ambedkar University Delhi, Nalanda University, Indira Gandhi National Open University and Amity University in various capacities. She completed her Master's and Ph D degrees from CESP, JNU. Her area of specialization is Environmental and Resource Economics that has evolved from Energy Economics during her doctoral research. She has been engaged in research guidance and published several articles in reputed national and international journals. Beyond academics, she is engaged in popularizing environmental education and community sensitization.

Dr. Robin Singhal is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Liberal Studies, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar University Delhi. He works in the area of Energy Economics, Environmental and Resource Economics and issues relating to Economics of Infrastructure. He has been a visiting faculty for Master's Programmes such as Environmental Studies & Resource Management and Climate Science & Policy at the TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi and the Executive Energy Management Programme at the Management Development Institute, Gurgaon. He has also been associated in various academic and professional capacities with the Department of Environmental Studies, University of Delhi; School of Inter-Disciplinary and Trans-Disciplinary Studies at Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi; Punjab School of Economics at Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar and DAV University, Jalandhar. He has published in reputed journals and presented his research at several conferences.