Social protection for climate adaptation: how India can adjust to a warming world

India has one of the world’s largest social protection systems, covering around 920 million people. Climate change is projected to put a significant strain on the system, especially given the country’s high exposure to extreme weather events. While the Government of India has expanded its social protection programmes in recent decades, it is unclear whether this will be sufficient to address its growing adaptation and resilience needs.

This report provides a high-level comparison of climate change impacts with existing social protection efforts, identifying current financing gaps and those that are likely to emerge in future. The authors provide policymakers with options for addressing these financing gaps using public, private and hybrid solutions based on international best practice.

Core recommendations

To reinforce India’s social protection system, policymakers should prioritise three main areas. First, they should ensure that social protection schemes converge with initiatives linked to climate adaptation by:

• Aligning social protection programmes with the National Adaptation Plan and mapping them against adaptation objectives.
• Coordinating existing climate- and disaster-relevant mechanisms and integrating them into social protection schemes.
• Developing national and state-level climate risk and vulnerability assessments.

Second, policymakers should align social protection and climate adaptation with states’ needs by:

• Allocating sufficient resources to schemes that states primarily implement.
• Developing state-specific financing tools and integrating them into existing programmes.

Third, policymakers should mobilise finance by:

• Embedding automatic shock-responsive top-up payments in existing direct transfer programmes.
• Incorporating climate vulnerability as a standalone criterion into fiscal devolution to states.
• Scaling up parametric insurance products for informal and outdoor workers.
• Mobilising blended finance to attract private capital for climate-resilient water, housing, transport and health infrastructure.

DOI: 10.21953/researchonline.lse.ac.uk.00140334