India should be made climate smart.

India will invest billions of dollars in public infrastructure over the next few years. Government policies also aim to massively increase private investments across sectors - manufacturing, services and agriculture. Each of these policies and investments will have time horizons spanning 5 to 50 years.
  Examples of planned infrastructure include - 100 new airports with an investment of $60 billion, interlinking of rivers at a budget of ports through Sagarmala at an outlay of Rs4 lakh crore. At a different scale, just one project - the 29.2km coastal road planned in one city, Mumbai - will cost Rs10, 000 crore.
   All these I itiativez will impact the lives and livelihoods of millions, and will compete for fi ite and scarce public resources. But are any of them being screened against the biggest existential threat humanity has ever faced-climate change? Unfortunately, the answer is NO.
  Putting a climate change lens on policy making offers a huge opportunity to make smart decisions about Indian's future. But this cannot wait. Climate change has the potential to swallow up all other issues of development.
  Given the credibility of this threat, it is both a moral and strategic imperative to bring climate change to the centre of the planning paradigm.