The Spatial Politics of Climate Finance: A case study of India

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Do party interests shape the spatial politics of climate change investment? From studies of partisan alignment effects, we know that central governments seek to inflate resource flows to aligned political units. Here, I specifically explore whether climate finance falls within this pattern of politicisation. Given the importance of climate finance in funding adaptation to protect against the impacts of climate change and mitigation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, it is vital that such politicisation be identified and analysed, to what extent the synergies impact (positively and negatively) the overall efficacy of the investments. The proposed research topic will explore the impact of partisan alignment on financial institutions' distribution of climate finance to states in India, further analysing the nature of finance flow via direct and transnational transfers. The institutions identified as a part of the research are the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), as India relies heavily on multilateral and bilateral finance to achieve its low carbon transition pathways and national climate action targets. Given the multi factor focus, there is capacity for a comparative study of climate finance politicisation within this single country case study. India joined the global action on climate change by revising their NDC targets and committing the country to Net Zero by 2070, which also means that it is of utmost importance to understand climate finance in the context of sub-national climate action and regional priorities (Winkler and Dubash, 2016). India's ambitious climate action targets needs to be backed up by substantial public and private finance. Therefore, considering the financial burden for climate action in India, it is of not much surprise that the nation relies heavily on multilateral and bilateral sources of climate finance through organizations like the World Bank, Asian Developmental Bank, and the 3 Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) to fulfil their short- and long term targets.