The Faculty Members of the Centre come from diverse discipline backgrounds and undertake research work on the following broad areas:

Climate Change and Mitigation Strategies

Keeping in mind the twin goals of environmental protection and human development is an important area of research for the group. Considerable work has been carried out on the operationalisation of equity and sustainable development in climate and energy policy in the context of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Work on emissions modelling and carbon budgets has been undertaken, opening many avenues for taking this research forward in multiple directions. Developing the carbon budget perspective has been an important aspect of the work of the Centre. The group's carbon budget approach is novel in that it recognises the necessity of addressing the issue of climate change while at the same time understanding the imperatives of development, especially for countries such as India. An emissions model built by the group as a mathematical representation of the problem of burden sharing between nations has been published as a discussion paper for a conference organised jointly by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Government of India and Tata Institute of Social Sciences in 2010 (Kanitkar et al. 2010 ). The work, begun in 2010, was further developed in 2011 in two publications. The work undertaken on the carbon budgets model has also been published in a peer-reviewed journal and as a book chapter in a Handbook on Climate Change. This work was extended further as a project for the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change in 2015 on meeting equity in climate change as the world approaches another critical juncture in climate governance at the 21st Conference of Parties in Paris.

Development and Sustainability

The practical challenges encountered in implementing the dual development and sustainability objectives must be addressed. An attempt to address these challenges has led to our research in energy. The energy pathways available to a country profoundly affect development within the country. Understanding the energy-environment-development relationship becomes even more important in the context of climate change. In this context, building models of sustainable macroeconomic energy options in the era of climate change is an important area of research for the group. Though a few significant modelling efforts have been undertaken to study the costs of mitigation at the level of the national economy in the context of India, most of these have adhered to standard models of either energy economics or integrated assessment models that take both macroeconomic features and emissions into account. However, both these models fall short of dealing with the particular features of a large developing country like India, which has, on the one hand, considerable development deficits and, on the other, has still to expand its manufacturing and industrial sector substantially. At the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Studies, we are developing models that would enable us to determine the critical linkages between development, energy and emissions. This work has been presented in various climate meetings and workshops and published in peer-reviewed journals and conferences.

The various challenges thrown open by the discourse and practice of sustainability, whether in objectively operationalising the concept or in explaining the conceptual and practical linkages of the idea with other social goals like equity and justice, need to be addressed. A major lacuna in sustainable development studies is the lack of attention to equity issues, whereby environmental concerns tend to trump all other matters, including development. A significant contribution to this debate at the international level was undertaken with the preparation of a report by T. Jayaraman and Sharadchhandra Lele (Atree Foundation, Bangalore) on equity and sustainable development. A report titled “Equity in the Context of Sustainable Development: Note for UN-GSP” is the outcome of this work. This constitutes one of our ongoing and future areas of work.

Vulnerability and Adaptation Studies

The studies on vulnerability and adaptation are important areas of active research. This includes longitudinal studies of vulnerability, impacts and recovery due to climate and weather shocks. The differential effect of environmental factors on different economic and social categories of rural society, particularly those related to agricultural production, is another focus area of study. The work on vulnerability and adaptation is also linked to studying the regional impacts of climate change. In the context of climate change and climate variability, several countries are increasingly focusing on adaptation (vis-à-vis mitigation) and have started to formulate and implement adaptation activities within their geographical confines for which certain sums of money are being set aside from their respective government budgets. To enable such action and plan for the same, policymakers need to understand the critical aspects of vulnerability to climate variability and eventually to climate change in the context of India, the issues involved in building resilience to climate change, the critical elements of climate change adaptation and its linkages with development. The Centre has been studying all of these issues. A detailed, systematic climate change and agriculture review was written on invitation and published in the online journal Review of Agrarian Studies. The review, titled “Climate Change and Agriculture: A Review Article with special reference to India,” was published in the journal 'Review of Agrarian Studies'. A review of the report of Working Group-I of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in the context of the impacts of climate change on Indian agriculture was also published in the journal Review of Agrarian Studies.

Energy Policy

The study of the challenges in ensuring access to energy in rural areas and the adoption of new technology to ensure the sustained well-being of a majority of the population are questions that the Centre has been studying for some time. Energy access or the use of non-commercial energy sources is critical to determining the future requirements of developing countries. It is an essential area of work that the centre will be focusing on. The Centre is working on identifying and elaborating on the core drivers of energy deprivation among most rural India's population. We have already initiated a study of secondary data on rural energy supply and conducted sample surveys in four villages in Maharashtra.

Environmental Policy, Governance, Regulation and Jurisprudence

The study of environmental governance at the national and international levels would be an area of focus for the centre. The explorations in this area would include answering questions about the efficacy and adequacy of the present political processes and structures of authority to deal with questions of livelihood enhancement, equity and justice, sustainability, cultural identity and democratic decision-making in managing and distributing natural resources, and critical assessment of environmental laws ranging from Wildlife Protection Act to Environmental Impact Assessment Notification. (EIA), CRZ, Environmental Protection Act, and Forest Conservation Act. Another critical area of work has been understanding the role and impact of environmental regulatory authorities and the Indian Judiciary and Green Tribunal in protecting and managing the environment and forest. 

Natural Resource Governance and Common Property Resources

Unlike the developed world, governance of natural resources (land, forest, water) in India is closely interlinked with local people's ownership, use, access and distribution rights. These resources serve multiple interests of the society and are used and managed through customary laws and laws enacted by the state. There also exists diverse institutional arrangements ranging from Gram Sabha to federal institutions like MoEF&CC to protect and manage these resources. However, there are constant claims and counterclaims from various stakeholders to use and appropriate these resources, especially in the post-liberalisation period. The increasing interest of non-local groups in the resources managed and operated by the local community has witnessed a paradigm shift in India's philosophy and process of natural resource governance. Centre's research focuses on understanding the nature, process and impact of emerging natural resource governance arrangements on livelihood, customary institutional arrangements and sustainability of resources.

Land and Forest Rights and Livelihood

The faculty members and students of the Centre have been actively involved in addressing various issues related to rural livelihood, land and forest rights. Broadly, the focus of research on land and forest rights includes assessing secured tenure land rights and their implications on socioeconomic and forest ecosystems. The Centre's work also contains evidence-based research and dissemination, policy advocacy, capacity building and training on land and forest rights. Faculty members and scholars of TISS have produced reports on livelihood and forest management and written extensively in academic and popular journals. TISS studies include livelihood, resource, and institutional mapping studies in Maharashtra, Odisha, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.