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The COVID-19 pandemic has thrown many challenges for governments across the globe. Building on an initial understanding of the fallouts of the pandemic and the learning from the coping and management responses so far, this article first identifies some necessary elements and notions critical in shaping the post-pandemic development paradigm. The article also examines India’s post-COVID-19 economic package to understand the gaps and the elements we need to build further on for greening the economic recovery. This analysis has benefitted from inputs and insights received from the representatives of industry and subject experts through a webinar and a survey based on a structured, open-ended questionnaire.

Given the growing frequency, severity, and salience of social mobilization and community action on energy and climate issues, in this study we systematically explore the configurations of types of infrastructure, actors, tactics, and outcomes of recent opposition to energy transitions across seven carbon-intensive regions in Asia, Europe, and North America. Based on both a literature review and an original dataset of 130 case studies spanning the past decade, we track opposition to a wide range of energy infrastructure in these regions, including low-carbon options such as renewable energy and nuclear power; provide network analyses of the actors and coalitions involved in such events; and develop a typology and frequency analysis of tactics (such as litigation or protest), and outcomes (such as remuneration, policy change, concessions, or labor protections). We show that the politics of energy transitions in carbon-intensive regions varies significantly from country to country and across types of energy, and we discuss how the configurations of infrastructure, actors, tactics, and outcomes can be explained by differences in national institutions and their responses to global or supranational pressures. By bringing both a sociotechnical and comparative perspective to the global analysis of social movements and energy transitions, we suggest how goals of energy transition are refracted through national and subnational institutions and through local mobilizations both in support of and opposed to those transitions.

World over the headlines are centred on COVID-19. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and various governments across the world see this pandemic sticking around for longer than everyone would hope for. Not a happy situation to be in (given the serious fallouts of the nature of COVID-19 management strategies on economies, employment, livelihood, health, and wellbeing of people). Yet, it demands that all stakeholders-governments, UN organizations, industry, people, civil society to shift their strategy from reactive to proactive. While industry needs to develop a good understanding of the implications of the current disruptions, as well as the future threats and risks and accordingly develop a contingency plan to totally avoid some of these, and minimize the impacts on their businesses. The governments also have a duty to: (i) develop and implement the measures that would minimize the risks to the economic recovery and (ii) focus on all possible measures to arrest the events that may contribute to serious disruptions such as poor air quality (AQ) thus further aggravating this unprecedented health crises in at least two ways. One, poor AQ poses additional risk to people getting hit by COVID-19, and two, cases of respiratory illnesses due to poor AQ will put additional burden on already overwhelmed modest health infrastructure in India. Come winter, Delhi AQ (sudden worsening in AQ due to paddy stubble burning in Punjab and Haryana) becomes a hot topic for the media, government, political circles, and elite population. The concern and anger of the last category is due, largely, to delayed or missed flights. AQ in Delhi or AQ in general in other urban hot spots has not been a serious election issue so far which could be due to the fact that the common man which bears the large brunt of health issues due to poor AQ has many other serious issues to deal with, and partly due to lack of understanding and awareness of the costs of poor AQ. However, available information shows that management of COVID-19 in persons with weak respiratory system is much harder and tricky and is associated with high mortality rates. There is evidence to suggest that cases of respiratory illness increase in Delhi in winter competing with other illness cases for limited health support systems. With COVID-19 the existing health infrastructure is already under severe stress. Also, It is likely that poor AQ (high SPM) might aid human-to-human transmission of COVID-19 although there is no scientific evidence yet to support this. This may mean that we have a giant imperative to avoid the annual disaster of AQ in Delhi and other cities of India. In this note we focus on AQ in Delhi. What solutions can we find now, to avoid the disaster in November–December 2020?

Set from the perspective of planetary health, the objective of this chapter is to examine the trends set in motion by Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), attempting to discuss the long-term environmental and humanitarian implications. The emergence of zoonotic diseases has underscored that risk-based interventions need to be designed from the perspective of planetary health. The pandemic response must account for its implications on humans and the planet. To address this subject, the chapter discusses emerging infectious diseases in the context of declining planetary health and the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter underscores the inadequacy of the transient improvement in some environmental quality parameters and short-term decrease in global greenhouse gas emissions. The inevitable global waste crisis arising from increasing use of plastic and other nonbiodegradable materials in the context of COVID-19 is discussed. Inequalities and vulnerabilities, in light of emerging humanitarian concerns, on account of the COVID-19 pandemic are examined. The need for a long-term vision and recommendations that could potentially address the key concerns flagged in the chapter are then discussed. This chapter argues that planetary health approaches that are needed to address the multiscale issues related to environmental quality and human well-being by protecting our planet.

Urban agglomerations like Delhi are witnessing a notable demographic changes that is only projected to grow further. Climate variability coupled with resource stress could further exacerbate the pressure on water resources. In this context, the paper examines the climate science-society-policy linkages in New Delhi while discussing issues related to provisioning of water. The lacunae in The Delhi Climate Change Agenda (2009-2012) is critically examined. Further an attempt is made to analyse well crafted climate change action plans of cities namely Mexico City and New York City.

Bundelkhand is located in arid region of central India. Climate variability coupled with water scarcity has already hit agriculture and livestock sectors in rural Bundelkhand. This article proposes a framework for integration of local climate governance for resilient livelihoods transformations through social programmes. Further a critical examination shows how efficiency of such institutional models at the grassroots level could be diluted in absence of an appropriate decision support environment and multi-stakeholder participation. The need of a bottom-up approach and the importance of linking up local governance into the larger climate policy arena focusing on community needs are highlighted.