In a year marked by escalating climate impacts, the ClimateRISE Alliance has worked with intention and urgency to catalyze locally rooted, systems-driven climate action across India. By anchoring efforts in lived experiences, fostering cross-sector collaboration, and amplifying the voices of communities and civil society, the Alliance has advanced innovative climate solutions that are inclusive, adaptive, and contextually relevant. The key milestones and strategic initiatives undertaken over the past year are highlighted below. Together, these efforts reflect the Alliance’s commitment to enabling climate resilience that is people-centered, place-based, and policy-informed.
Local Councillor Handbook: Developed a localized climate action guide for grassroots governance by convening 4 Alliance partners to document and amplify climate leadership stories from elected councillors, strengthening last-mile political will for resilient urban service delivery.
Cross Learning Efforts: Facilitated multiple cross-learning platforms, including Parvat Manthan with NIUA, BORDA, and ICIMOD, Water Resilience Convening with Rainmatter Foundation, Wataavaran Air Quality Dialogues, Global South Academic Conclave, Dasra Philanthropy Week, and Legacy Waste Management convenings with BORDA enabling city champions and CSOs to exchange practical innovations, strengthen peer networks, and accelerate implementation of climate-resilient urban solutions.
Global South’s first Annual Dialogue on Climate-Health: Leveraging the forum of the 2025 World Health Summit to build South Asia’s first cross-country annual forum on climate-health in partnership with WHS academic alliance, amplifying Global South leadership and South-South knowledge exchange. The key insights from the events are linked below:
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Roundtable on Climate & Health Nexus in India.
Women’s Health and Climate: Supported comprehensive evidence aggregation from diverse sectors/regions of India on intersection on women’s health and climate by co-developing a report with MSSRF for the Ministry of Women & Child Development, which highlights climate impacts on women’s health and livelihoods.
Shields of the Shore - A Scoping Study on the Status, Threats, Resilience, and Conservation Pathways for India’s Coastal Blue Vegetated Ecosystems: This first-of-a-kind study, conducted by Dasra in partnership with SaciWATERs, unveils alarming threats to India’s coastal blue vegetated ecosystems—mangroves, seagrasses, and salt marshes. These ecosystems, often referred to as “blue carbon ecosystems,” are vital for climate mitigation, biodiversity conservation, and the livelihoods of millions of coastal residents. However, they are under severe threat from disruptions in freshwater inflows, urban encroachment, industrial expansion in upstream and coastal regions, aquaculture intensification, and the escalating impacts of climate change.
Voice of Maharashtra: In an effort to localize climate action and communication, the ClimateRISE Alliance, Jhatkaa.org, and Socratus convened a one-day workshop bringing together over 10 Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and funders from across Maharashtra. The convening focused on bridging the gap between global climate discourse and the everyday realities of vulnerable communities such as farmers, fisherfolk, and migrant workers. Participants identified key regional challenges, shared on-ground strategies, and collaboratively worked on developing an actionable climate communication plan tailored to Maharashtra’s diverse contexts. This collective effort aimed to make climate messaging more relevant, accessible, and impactful for communities on the frontlines of the crisis. Find the full report on the convening here.
Human-Wildlife Interaction Media Roundtables: Engaged with key perception influencing stakeholders like journalists, media professionals and social media influencers to build systems for holistic reporting on human wildlife interactions. This was done through one-on-one interactions and media roundtables. Report out of the roundtables:
Codification of stories: Codified knowledge around under-reported issues like- climate communication, blue forests, solid waste management and women farmers (Kisaan Diwas Campaign)
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Amplification and spotlighting the work of 80+ Alliance partners and providing them platforms to reach larger audiences.
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Building Thought Leadership to change narrative on climate in the long run. Some key streams of thought we picked this year were- circular lifestyles, coexistence, public and mental health, philanthropic funding for climate resilience, etc.