Exploring synergies between India's climate change and land degradation targets: Lessons from Glasgow Climate COP

Land degradation, extending over 96 million hectares is a primary ecological issue for India that has resulted in catastrophic biodiversity loss and exacerbated extreme weather occurrences. One of the major sources of land degradation is large-scale coal mining to realize country's expanding energy demands. By 2050 climate change and land degradation, will result in $1730 billion loss for India.

To enhance the effectiveness of the promises, we propose embedding diverse knowledge systems including indigenous knowledge systems and capabilities by formulating policies that incentivize environmental restoration, people-centric, climate sensitive strategies, convergence between different government departments as well as schemes, and mainstreaming of systems thinking as a social transformation approach for achieving coupled climate and Land Degradation Neutrality targets by 2030 and 2070.