CPR Perspectives Episode 1: Rohan Venkat in conversation with Navroz Dubash

To mark CPR’s 50th anniversary, we are delighted to present a brand new interview series called CPR Perspectives. Every month we plan to bring you a flagship conversation, with Rohan Venkat interviewing a faculty member on their research, policy practice and engagement with the most critical questions of our age. Over the past five decades, the Centre for Policy Research has played a unique role in India’s policy landscape, tackling concerns as varied and vital as climate change and federalism, urbanisation and national security and bringing a genuinely multi-disciplinary approach to the field. Today, with India facing a complex geopolitical landscape and even greater development and climate challenges, the Centre’s faculty continue to produce field-defining research while also working directly with policymakers and stakeholders in government and beyond. In the first interview, Rohan speaks to Navroz Dubash, a professor at CPR where he also runs the Initiative on Climate, Energy and Environment. Dubash is one of the world’s most renowned experts on climate change, having worked on the subject since the 1990s – well before it became a household term. Dubash’s wide-ranging career has featured landmark research papers, agenda-setting edited volumes, two authored books and key roles on a number of official and advisory committees in India and at the global level. He was a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations’ panel which publishes landmark reports on the state of climate change research. Dubash’s work led to CPR being the overall anchor institution and technical knowledge partner for the Indian government’s Long Term-Low Emissions and Development Strategy. He has received the TN Khoshoo Memorial Award for his work on Indian and global climate change governance, the Emerging Regions Award by Environmental Research Letters, and the SR Sen Award for Best Book in Agricultural Economics and Rural Development, for his book Tubewell Capitalism. In this conversation, Dubash talks about about working on climate change back in 1990 - well before it was in vogue, whether it is frustrating to still be going over questions of climate change vs development that have been around since then, why the Climate Initiative at CPR turned into the Initiative on Climate, Energy and the Environment, and why it’s important to make academic work accessible for wider audiences. Navroz talks about what it was like to help the Indian government draft its strategy for low-emissions development, why it’s important to not just follow the Western narrative on climate change and what advice Dubash has for younger scholars entering this important field.