NITI Aayog’s Vice Chairman Suman Bery. File
| Photo Credit: PIB

India and the United States should consider integrating “climate risks” and related technologies into the TRUST framework that was signed recently by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump, Suman Bery, Vice-Chairman, Niti Aayog said at a conference on Wednesday.

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Transforming the Relationship Utilising Strategic Technology (TRUST), signed during Mr. Modi’s visit to the United States in February, is the new name of the Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technologies (iCET) that was in place during the Biden administration. It involves government-to-government, academia and private-sector collaboration to promote application of critical and emerging technologies in areas such as defence, artificial intelligence, semiconductors, quantum, biotechnology, energy and space.

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“All of the focus of initiatives [such as TRUST] has been on Artificial Intelligence, quantum computing. I would suggest that [the U.S. and India] could collaborate on areas like this [climate] as they are forms of non-traditional security, and be integrated, in due course, in government-to-government schemes,” he said. Mr. Bery was delivering the keynote address at the “India 2047: Building a Climate-Resilient Future” summit co-organised by the Union Environment Ministry and Harvard University.

“Among the challenges from climate change is that not everything is predictable. You could have places with extreme heat suddenly besieged by floods. Adapting to this will require flexibility; this is not something that comes easily to Indian bureaucracy,” said Mr. Bery, adding, “This will require a greater empowerment of District Collectors and people on the ground.”

India is expected to prepare its first-ever National Adaptation Plan (NAP), a road map for dealing with the challenges of climate extremes, ahead of the 30^th Conference of Parties, or the annual climate meet, in Brazil this November. Deliberations from the symposium could contribute to the NAP. A National Stakeholders Workshop for the same was held here earlier this week.

Adaptation is a key element of developing countries’ preparations to address climate change though mitigation – or the reduction of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel – and has historically been the larger focus of international climate summits. Minister of State for Environment, Kirti Vardhan Singh, said on Monday at the conference that climate finance was crucial in supporting adaptation initiatives. He added at the conference that climate finance was crucial in supporting adaptation initiatives. He stressed that financial resources must be significantly scaled up to meet the needs of vulnerable communities and ensure effective adaptation measures. This would require innovative financing mechanisms, including blended finance (Public and private partnerships), risk-sharing frameworks, and greater private sector engagement, to complement public finance in driving adaptation efforts.