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Capacity-building is acknowledged as an essential requirement for addressing environmental and developmental challenges in developing countries. In particular, the capacity to manage technological change is an important prerequisite for climate change mitigation, adaptation and green growth. Despite the importance of such capacity, there are surprisingly few empirical accounts unpacking its different dimensions and exploring how it might be built in developing countries in the context of climate and sustainable development challenges. In this paper, we contribute to this sparse literature through an in-depth qualitative case study on energy efficiency in India. Specifically, we take a systemic and evolutionary perspective to investigate how the Bureau of Energy Efficiency developed and implemented its programs to promote energy efficiency in household appliances, light-emitting-diode lamps and energy-intensive industries – and how in doing so, both drew upon existing capacity within and outside the country, and also built new capacity, to achieve significant energy savings. Key policy insights Since the capacity to manage technological change is distributed among a range of actors, policymakers require the ability to understand capacity needs from multiple actors' perspectives. Policymakers need to respond to evolving capacity needs over the course of a program – from strategic program design, trust-building and resource mobilization in early stages, to administration in later stages. 'System operators/integrators' can play a crucial role during the early stages of a program by helping develop capacity and sustaining it by creating a demand for such capacity, as well as bringing together actors, enabling coordination, and building coalitions among them. Preliminary analysis suggests that the Bureau of Energy Efficiency programs investigated in this paper resulted in significant energy savings and CO2 emission reductions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is clear that developing countries will have to be part of the global mitigation effort to avoid ‘dangerous climate change’, and, indeed, many of them are already undertaking significant actions on multiple fronts to help address this problem, even if they have not yet taken on legally binding commitment under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Since the deployment of GHG-mitigating technologies is already a significant part of this effort and likely to be even more so in the future, drawing lessons from existing programmes can help accelerate and enhance the effectiveness of this deployment process. Accordingly, this article aims to examine the deployment of wind and solar power in India, paying specific attention to the role of public policy in incentivizing and facilitating this deployment, how these policies have evolved over time, what has shaped this evolution, and what the learning has been over this period. Through this analysis, the intention is to draw out key lessons from India's experience with deployment policies and programmes in these two sectors and highlight the issues that will need to be given particular consideration in the design of future domestic policies and international cooperation programmes to enhance the move towards climate-compatible development in India. Many of these lessons should also be relevant for other developing countries that are attempting to balance their climate and developmental priorities through the deployment of renewable energy technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]