The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) hosted a seminar titled “India’s Climate Finance Requirements: An Assessment” on Monday, September 15, 2025 at the CSEP Auditorium, 6, Dr Jose P Rizal Marg, Chanakyapuri, New Delhi – 110021.

The session opened with a presentation by Rakesh Mohan, President Emeritus & Distinguished Fellow, CSEP and Former Deputy Governor, RBI and Janak Raj, Senior Fellow, CSEP, drawing insights from a recent CSEP Working Paper. This was followed by a panel discussion with Neha Kumar, Head, South Asia, Climate Bonds Initiative and Arunabha Ghosh, CEO, Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW). Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Distinguished Fellow, CSEP and Former Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Government of India chaired the session.

About the study

This study assesses India’s climate finance requirement from 2022-2030 to substantially decarbonise its four major carbon-emitting sectors—cement, steel, power, and road transport—which contributed over 50 per cent of India’s CO2 emissions in 2023. Climate finance requirement for transitioning to a low-carbon economy, i.e., over and above the capex already planned in the business-as-usual (BAU) scenario, has been estimated at US$467 billion for 2022-2030 or 1.3 per cent of India’s gross domestic product (GDP) annually. The steel and cement sectors require the largest amount of additional capex of US$251 billion and US$141 billion, respectively. An additional capex of US$57 billion is needed in the power sector for switching from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy and energy storage. The road transport sector is estimated to require an additional capex of US$18 billion for transitioning from internal combustion engine vehicles (ICEVs) to electric vehicles (EVs) and developing the charging infrastructure for EVs.

The study also evaluated the macroeconomic consistency of India’s estimated climate finance requirement. India would need to skilfully manage both (i) external financial flows (capital & financial flows net of current account deficit) in the BAU scenario; and (ii) climate finance from external sources. The study also assessed the fiscal space for financing climate action. Currently, the general government has little fiscal space, and it is expected to be constrained for some more years to come. This suggests that the resources for climate action may have to be financed largely by the domestic private sector.

Chair

Montek Singh Ahluwalia 

Montek Singh Ahluwalia is a Distinguished Fellow at CSEP. An economist and civil servant, he was former Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission, Government of India. He joined the Government in 1979 as Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Finance, after which he held a series of positions including Special Secretary to the Prime Minister; Commerce Secretary; Secretary in the Department of Economic Affairs; Finance Secretary in the Ministry of Finance; Member of the Planning Commission and Member of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister. In 2001, he was appointed as the first Director of the newly created Independent Evaluation Office of the International Monetary Fund. He resigned from that position in 2004 to take up the position of Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission which he held from 2004 to 2014.

Mr Ahluwalia has been a key figure in Indian economic policy. He writes on various aspects of development economics and has been published in prominent Indian and international journals and books. He co-authored Re-distribution with Growth: An Approach to Policy, which, published in 1975, was a path-breaking book on income distribution. In February 2020, he published his book, Backstage: The Story Behind India’s High Growth Years, an insider’s account of policymaking from 1985 to 2014.

For his outstanding contribution to economic policy and public service, he was conferred the prestigious ‘Padma Vibhushan’ in 2011, India’s 2^nd highest civilian award for exceptional and distinguished service.

Mr Ahluwalia graduated from Delhi University and holds an MA and an MPhil in Economics from Oxford University. He is an Honorary Fellow of Magdalen College Oxford.

Presenters

Rakesh Mohan

Dr Rakesh Mohan is President Emeritus and Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP).

He served as President and Distinguished Fellow at CSEP from October 2020 to May 2023. Since October 2021, he has been a member of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council (EAC-PM), and in March 2024, he was appointed to the World Bank Group’s Economic Advisory Panel.

Dr Mohan was part of the team that was instrumental in formulating India’s economic reforms from the late 1980s onwards. His distinguished public service includes positions as Executive Director on the Board of the International Monetary Fund, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India, Secretary of Economic Affairs, and Chief Economic Adviser at the Ministry of Finance, as well as Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Industry.

He has chaired several government committees that produced landmark reports on infrastructure, including The India Infrastructure Report (1996), The Indian Railways Report (2001), and The India Transport Report (2014). Following the North Atlantic Financial Crisis, he co-chaired the G20 Working Group on Enhancing Sound Regulation and Strengthening Transparency (2009), and the CGFS/BIS Working Group on Capital Flows and Emerging Market Economies (2009).

Before joining CSEP, Dr Mohan was Senior Fellow at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs (2010-11; 2016-20), Yale University and Professor in the Practice of International Economics and Finance at Yale School of Management (2010–12). He has also been Distinguished Consulting Professor at Stanford University (2009) and Distinguished Fellow at Brookings India.

He is the author of three books on urban economics and development, two on monetary policy—Monetary Policy in a Globalized Economy: A Practitioner’s View (2009), and Growth with Financial Stability: Central Banking in an Emerging Market—and the edited volume India Transformed: 25 Years of Economic Reforms.

Dr Mohan holds a BSc (Eng) from Imperial College of Science and Technology, University of London (1969); a BA from Yale University (1971); and an MA (1974) and PhD (1977) in Economics from Princeton University.

Janak Raj

Janak Raj is a Senior Fellow and leads the macroeconomic segment in the Growth, Finance and Development vertical at CSEP. He also works specifically on inter-linkages between economic growth and human development, fiscal federalism in the health sector, climate finance and multilateral development banks (MDBs) reforms. He is currently also a member of the JM Financial Centre for Financial Research of IIM Udaipur. He has more than four decades of work experience, including in the Reserve Bank of India, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Ministry of Finance (Department of Financial Services). Janak Raj served as an Executive Director in the Reserve Bank of India and as a member of its statutory Monetary Policy Committee (MPC). He also served as Principal Adviser of Monetary Policy Department and International Department of the RBI and headed its Department of Economic Policy and Research. At the IMF Washington DC, he was Senior Advisor to the Executive Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka. He served as an RBI nominee director on the Governing Board of the BSE (formerly Bombay Stock Exchange) and as a Senior Consultant in the Department of Financial Services, Ministry of Finance. He holds a PhD in Economics from IIT Bombay.

Panellists

Neha Kumar

Neha Kumar is the Head, South Asia, Climate Bonds Initiative and is based in Delhi. She drives policy, strategy and partner programmes on climate risks and sustainable financial ecosystem. Her efforts are targeted at building policy mechanisms, market infrastructure and capacities needed to accelerate financing for green, just and resilient transition in the region. Her current areas of focus include transition and resilience finance, the role of financial policy and regulation, and DFI and MDBs. She serves on the committees of IFSCA and NITI Aayog on climate finance, is a member of the committee constituted by the Ministry of Finance on the Climate Finance Taxonomy development and has contributed to international ESG standard setting bodies. Avidly interested in the political economy of flow of sustainable finance, she has been working on the topics of equity and climate justice. She has two decades of experience in responsible financing, environmental and political risks. She is trained in science, international environmental negotiations and politics.

Arunabha Ghosh

Arunabha Ghosh is an internationally recognised public policy expert, author, columnist, and institution builder. He advises governments, industry, civil society, and international organisations around the world. Last year, the Government of India appointed him to the Commission for Air Quality Management. In May 2025, the Government of Brazil appointed him as a Special Envoy for COP30 climate negotiations. He currently co-chairs the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on the Energy Nexus. He served on the Government of India’s G20 Finance Track Advisory Group and advised the Sherpa Track for India’s G20 Presidency in 2022-23. In 2022, the UN Secretary-General appointed him to the High-level Expert Group on the Credibility and Accountability of Net-Zero Announcements by Non-State Actors. Dr Ghosh has been a member of the UN Committee for Development Policy since 2019 (nominated by the UN Secretary-General; Vice-Chair 2023-25).

All content reflects the individual views of the speakers. The Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) does not hold an institutional view on any subject.

Please contact Gurmeet Kaur at GKaur@csep.org for general queries and Ayesha Manocha at AManocha@csep.org for media queries.