Innovations in Urban Climate Governance for Bengaluru

The thesis aims for effective climate governance and is based on research question ‘Why Bengaluru city’s governance is not able to effectively deal with planning and development related to urban area climate?’. The biggest problem is administrative complexities associated with the current centralized top-down approach. This has led to non-efficient local government practices, limited apprehension of urban civil society and restricted responses by non-governmental organizations to deal with urban climate. Analyzes of the current institutional landscape through official websites and existing policies in India on climate governance; areas of action, responsible authorities and financing options at international, national and sub-national levels reveals the complicated structure of governance. The federal political system constraints on local climate policies has led to many major Indian cities including Bengaluru not having a local climate action plan and an authority. In addition, the city in 2017 has been named as the worst city for ‘Urban Governance’ among 23 major Indian cities by the ‘Survey of India’ agency. Online survey conducted on awareness levels, opinions and behavioral aspects of 180 Bengalureans (residents of the city) pertaining to climate action underlines the civil society’s knowledge and understanding. Further adding to the misery are in-person interview evidences of numerous planning and implementation gaps or challenges faced by 7 governmental and 6 non-governmental organizations. The solution to overcome all these challenges are incorporating innovative governance strategies within the current developments to promote bottom-up approaches, knowledge sharing digital platform and climate interventions at neighborhood scale; all of which would help in the creation of a climate friendly Bengaluru.