Disaster Risk Reduction through Climate Adaptive Development: Strategies and Road Ahead

India is vulnerable to natural hazards particularly drought, flood and cyclones. Increase in frequency and intensity of disasters due to climate change are of serious concern for Disaster Management, Climate Change Adaptation and Climate Resilience. Climate Resilient Development aims to build the capacities of vulnerable communities to withstand the serious ecological, economic, and social challenges posed by climate change. To address this many policies and programs have to be seen all through the climate lens. The need for this has been well spelt out in India’s National Disaster Management Plan (National Disaster Management Authority, Governmnet of India, 2016) and India’s National Action Plan for Climate Change (2008). Internationally, Sustainable Development Goals, Paris Climate Agreement (2015) and Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction-SFDRR (2015–2030) have formulated global and universal guidelines and targets for action towards sustainable development by synchronizing every tier of governments and agencies of very country. Potential of integrating DRR and CCA has also been recognised in this study. The combined approach has multiple benefits including a lessening of duplicate efforts (considering the case if the two subjects are taken separately), optimization of resource utilization, and development of more resilient communities.