15. Mainstreaming Co-benefits in Urban Policy, Governance and Finance

This chapter concludes the book by examining the potential for mainstreaming a climate co-benefits approach in urban policy, governance and finance to address climate impacts and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in India. The cities have a key role to accrue co-benefits as they have jurisdictional and functional responsibility for planning and provision of services. The five-year plans, sectoral policies and projects comprise the urban policy framework in India and past efforts have not paid much attention to climate co-benefits. It is only in the last decade that the programmes and policies have started paying attention to the climate co-benefits in their development agenda. There is a greater scope for mainstreaming a climate co-benefits approach into these policies and ensure their effective implementation at the state and Urban Local Body (ULB) levels. The governance and financing capacities of implementing agencies can play a key role in effective implementation of urban sector policies. The 12th Five Year Plan and the High Power Expert Committee Report have made suggestions for strengthening the governance and financing framework for promoting urban development, which needs to be implemented on a priority basis. The chapter presents the need and approach to internalize a climate co-benefit approach, discusses the key issues and suggests the way forward to mainstream co-benefits into the urban policy, governance and financing framework in India.