Indian cities are at the forefront of the climate crisis, be it air pollution in Delhi, rising sea levels in Mumbai, heat in Chennai, or flooding in Bengaluru. In contrast, development in Indian cities has been majorly driven by statutory Master Plans without adequate attention to climate considerations. Climate mainstreaming offers cities the opportunity to systematically integrate environmental commitments and considerations into city processes to institutionalise climate action across all areas of the city’s work (land use plans, building bye-laws, budgets, etc.). The talk explored the current challenges with statutory master-planning in India and explored the opportunities for mainstreaming climate action into statutory land-use planning.
Benjamin John
Benjamin serves as Head of Implementation for South and West Asia, after working as C40 Senior Manager for Climate Implementation and C40 City Adviser to Chennai and Bengaluru. His work with Chennai and Bengaluru includes helping both cities prepare their climate action plans and further support the implementation of the city CAPs across various sectors like Energy, Transport, Land Use Planning etc. Before joining C40, Benjamin worked with the National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA) where he focused on the preparation of the Master Plan of Delhi 2041. With Dutch consultancy firm Royal Haskoning DHV (RHDHV) Benjamin worked on the Revised Master Plan of Bengaluru 2031 as well as on greenfield urban extension master plans for Surat and Aurangabad.