While heatwaves and their associated health and economic impacts have risen over the years, philanthropic funding in the sector remains limited. Structural gaps, due to the chronic, highly local, and cross-sectoral nature of heat, limit funding but make it all the more critical  for Indian philanthropy to rethink its giving strategy. In this article, ICC's Swapnil Saxena reflects on how thoughtful and deliberate philanthropy can help build scalable and long-term heat resilience. Dive into it here: tinyurl.com/484wat6u

One of the biggest misconceptions about heat is that it is uniform. Shravan Prabhu and Vishwas Chitale from CEEW dive into the uneven impacts of heat, advocating for incorporating hazard, exposure, and vulnerability factors into national planning and decision-making. Examine the full piece here: tinyurl.com/2p9r7f7j

Extreme heat in Bangalore re-shapes the lived realities of informal and migrant workers. This article, by Siji Chacko, Migrants Resilience Collaborative, foregrounds the experience of these workers and argues for systemic, scalable solutions anchored in collective ownership. Read it here: tinyurl.com/2ztdm9pz

Heat compounds structural injustices, amplifying the impacts of poorly ventilated workplaces, lack of access to drinking water and basic facilities, and gruelling, incentive-based shifts. This insightful piece by Apekshita Varshney and Vasundhara Jhobta at HeatWatch sheds light on how heat is also an economic and social challenge, which necessitates that the communities who bear the brunt of it must have a seat at the table. Explore it here: tinyurl.com/mvuan3cx

Climate action in India’s food systems is often constrained by fragmented decision-making, with agriculture still viewed through output rather than lived climate realities. Transformation must deliver on nutrition, livelihoods, and ecological resilience together, while aligning systems of finance, governance, markets, and technology. In this article, we explore convenings as critical coordination infrastructure that build shared understanding and sustain alignment across actors. Read now: tinyurl.com/4z933w4r

Philanthropy is widely recognised as a key lever for climate action, but what sustains it is the evolving journey of giving itself. As funders deepen their engagement, they are asking new questions and shaping more inclusive, grounded, and community-led approaches to climate innovation in India. In this article, we reflect on this shift, highlighting a growing alignment among givers toward enabling stronger climate outcomes and leadership across the Global South. Explore now: tinyurl.com/2z5xapvc

Climate journalism in India balances instinct with reporting grounded in lived realities, community, and evidence. It calls for courage and creativity to inform, hold power accountable, and reflect without bias. In this take, @MongabayIndia Head @SekarSandhya explores climate journalism that is rooted in commitment, storytelling, and a deep dedication to a planet at the centre of our shared grief and possibility. Dive in here: tinyurl.com/4m3vzmxw

The world is being reshaped by power and influence, pushing planetary limits, but collective responsibility has proven its strength by bringing species like the blue whale back from the brink. Grounded hope rooted in inclusion, diversity, and community wisdom is essential. In this call to action, Prof. dr. J. (Joyeeta) Gupta of the University of Amsterdam urges a new global social contract, one that redefines our relationship with the planet, each other, and the legacy we leave behind. Read more at tinyurl.com/yvcspm2t

Amanda Leland (Environmental Defense Fund), Mandira Kalra Kalaan (Purpose), Marcella D'Souza (Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR ), Nidhi Jamwal (Journalist), Neha Khara (GIZ India) convened to understand how and why participatory action is often framed as consultation, and whether communities are invited to share perspectives or to share power. At Mumbai Climate Week 2026, the session “Leading with Participatory Action: Communities and Regenerative Food Futures,” shaped a wide-ranging conversation on how climate and food systems work in the Global South must move beyond extractive models of engagement. The discussion explored how increasing climate vulnerability across rural regions requires approaches that recognise communities not as passive recipients of programmes, but as co-authors of the futures being built. People-first climate action, when grounded in local realities, has the potential to generate simultaneous gains across livelihoods, nutrition, health, and ecological resilience. Read more in the blog here: tinyurl.com/bdsxut9s

If technology does not work for the farmer, it will not work at all. This idea grounded the Mumbai Climate Week 2026 discussion in the session “Technology and the Services Economy for a Climate Smart Agricultural Transformation,” with Dr. Veena Srinivasan (@WELLLabs_org), Kairas Vakharia (Mahindra & Mahindra), Mirik Gogri (Spectrum Impact), Sameer Kwatra (NRDC India), and Nikhita Nadkarni (Acumen). The conversation challenged a common assumption that climate-smart agriculture will be driven primarily by deep-tech breakthroughs. Speakers emphasised that technology must begin with context, shaped by agro-climatic realities, gender dynamics, and the socio-economic conditions of rural communities rather than being deployed as a standalone solution. Read more in the blog at tinyurl.com/bdsxut9s

'Future Cities, Interlinked Realities: Governing Climate Shocks in the Global South' brought together BVR Subrahmanyam (NITI Aayog), Dr. Anshu Bharadwaj (NITI Aayog), Ayushi Ashar (Ashar Group), Maria Netto (Institute for Climate and Society), Madhav Pai (WRI India), Nyrika Holkar (Godrej & Boyce Mfg. Co. Ltd.), Rohini Nilekani (Rohini Nilekani Philanthropies), Dr. Shankar Deshpande, (MMRDA), and Shloka Nath (India Climate Collaborative) for a plenary that widened the lens on climate resilience from neighbourhood interventions to the scale of metropolitan systems. The discussion centred on the recognition that urban climate risks rarely operate in isolation. Heat, flooding, housing, transport, and air quality interact with one another to shape how cities function and how citizens experience vulnerability. Several speakers reflected on India’s opportunity to define a Global South pathway to resilient growth, one grounded in coordination across sectors rather than fragmented responses to individual challenges. Others highlighted the role philanthropy can play as connective tissue, helping align institutions that often operate in parallel but rarely together. The conversation acknowledged that the challenge is not whether cities can adapt to climate shocks, but whether governance systems, financing structures, and planning processes can align quickly enough to make that adaptation possible. For more insights, read the blog at tinyurl.com/mr2fpp2m

Agroecology has demonstrated clear benefits for ecosystems, farmer livelihoods, and long-term food system resilience. It, however, continues to operate at the margins of scale. This tension shaped the discussion in the session “Scaling What Works in India: From Pilot to Nationwide Agroecology” at Mumbai Climate Week 2026. Ramanjaneyulu G V (CSA), Kamyla Borges da Cunha (ICS Brazil), Vijay Kolekar (POCRA, Government of Maharashtra), Satyajit Bhatkal (Paani Foundation), and Vikash K Abraham (Urban Farms Co.), reflected on the structural barriers that make ecological transitions difficult for smallholder farmers. Despite growing evidence on the environmental and public health costs of synthetic-input agriculture, existing subsidy regimes, market signals, and policy incentives still favour conventional farming. What became apparent was that scaling agroecology requires shared transition risk, patient and long-term capital, coordinated institutions, and strong community organisation, because farmers cannot be expected to carry the burden of systemic change alone. Read more in the blog at tinyurl.com/bdsxut9s

Extreme heat is often treated as a seasonal emergency. In reality, it is a structural stressor already reshaping how cities function, how people work, how children learn, and how public systems absorb strain. “Funding Heat Resilience: Rethinking Priorities, Pathways and the Role of Funders,” convened by the India Climate Collaborative in partnership with the Philanthropy Asia Alliance brought together senior leaders from more than 25 international and domestic philanthropies, CSR platforms, family foundations, and domain experts to reflect on emerging evidence, frontline experience, and institutional lessons from efforts to address rising heat risk. Soumya Swaminathan (MSSRF), Shaun Seow (Philanthropy Asia Alliance), and Ashif Shaikh (Jan Sahas) helped frame the discussion across science, philanthropy, and labour realities. The conversation brought into line of sight the need for stronger scientific grounding and institutional capacity to assess and manage heat-related health risks, while also pointing to the potential of coordinated philanthropic platforms to bridge climate and public health agendas. Participants compared approaches spanning labour protections, public health systems, and municipal governance, while sharing the reckoning that philanthropy's criticality is to strengthen institutional capacity, invest in credible evidence, and support systemic evolution so that resilience becomes embedded in public systems. Explore the session in this blog: tinyurl.com/mr2fpp2m @Mumbai_Climate

Neha Khanna (Climate Policy Initiative - India), Matilda Lobo (IndusInd Bank), Jinesh Shah (Omnivore), Anjali Acharya, Ph.D (The Nature Conservancy), and Ravindra Singh Negi (Bank of Baroda) came together for the session “Financing the Food Systems Transition in the Global South” at Mumbai Climate Week 2026 to reflect on designing finance that truly works for farmers, landscapes, and long-term resilience. The conversation surfaced that transforming food systems goes beyond mobilising more capital, but also to ensuring that finance is deployed in ways that align with farmer economics, climate risk realities, and viable long-term business models. Without landscape-level planning, climate risk intelligence, and strong local institutions, funding can easily fragment rather than compound, leaving both producers and financial institutions exposed to stranded assets. Read more in our blog here: tinyurl.com/bdsxut9s @Mumbai_Climate

Siddharth Sharma (Tata Trusts), Amit Chandra (A.T.E. Chandra Foundation (ATECF)), Ashif Shaikh (YUVA), Neha Kumar (Climate Bonds Initiative), Sheela Patel (SPARC), Srikanth Viswanathan (BPAC), sujith nair (FIDE), and Rishika Das Roy (India Climate Collaborative) in the “Building Liveable Cities – Strategic Planning for an Improved Quality of Life” session explored the idea that liveability is the institutional expression of climate resilience. The discussion began by reframing climate risk as a daily systems reality shaping how cities function. From informal settlements that sit outside formal planning frameworks to migrant workers whose labour sustains urban economies yet whose exposure to heat and precarity rarely informs policy priorities, the conversation surfaced how vulnerability often remains invisible within current governance systems. The moment that anchored the conversation was the recognition that when governance systems align, liveability becomes something cities are designed to sustain, not something they attempt to repair after a crisis. Deep dive into this and other conversations on urban resilience, as seen at Mumbai Climate Week 2026, here: tinyurl.com/mr2fpp2m @Mumbai_Climate

At Mumbai Climate Week 2026, the session “Nature, Food, & People: Resilient Pathways for the Global South” explored a critical paradox of how those who feed the world remain among its most vulnerable. Smallholder producers grow nearly 75% of the world’s food and nourish billions, and they still are often the least equipped to absorb compounding climate and economic risks. The discussion framed food systems as a question of production and an interconnected system, as well as both victims and contributors to the climate crisis, driving environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, and accounting for ~21% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Bharat Kakde (BAIF), Cynthia McCaffrey (UNICEF), Manoj Kumar (Naandi Foundation), David Kennedy (SBTi), Shloka Nath (Moderator) highlighted pathways already taking shape and the conversation converged on a shared understanding of resilient food systems requiring diversification, collective ownership, patient capital, and policies grounded in the principles of Protect, Empower, and Renew. Read more at: tinyurl.com/bdsxut9s @Mumbai_Climate

In a fireside conversation between Shloka Nath (India Climate Collaborative) and Secretary @HillaryClinton, the discussion moved beyond climate ambition to what leadership actually requires in a moment when climate risk, inequality, and geopolitical uncertainty are converging. Secretary Clinton reflected on how dialogue, networks, and partnerships are meaningful only when they translate into real commitments across climate, health, gender equity, and economic opportunity. The conversation also acknowledged the growing leadership of the Global South in shaping climate and development agendas, even as structural barriers in finance, trade, and geopolitics continue to shape what is possible. A just climate transition, she noted, cannot ask countries to choose between development and decarbonisation. The two must move together. For philanthropy, her clarion call was for a shift from traditional grantmaking toward catalytic capital and systems change, helping unlock solutions that governments and markets cannot enable alone. The conversation closed on a quiet alignment of how leadership, especially in moments of global change, is sustained by persistence, community, and the willingness to stay engaged for the long arc of change. To read more, visit tinyurl.com/45v6knna @Mumbai_Climate | @ClintonGlobal

In the latest #ICCNewsletter, we bring expert voices from @WRIIndia, @CSTEP_India and Momentum Shifts, to examine how urban resilience, energy transitions and food systems converge in dense, living systems like cities. Their insights remind us that resilience is choreography, between governance and finance, between data and design, between communities and capital. We also reflect on the India Climate Gathering, Mumbai Climate Week and the moments that felt like a quiet turning of the tide. From Delhi Climate Innovation Week to SCALE – Solving for Climate Action by Leveraging the Ecosystem, there is a growing recognition that climate is a condition shaping everything else. The question is beyond whether cities will adapt, it is about how, and for whom. Additionally, we surface curated solutions across food, urban systems, and energy diversification. We offer them not as silver bullets, but as practical pathways within a systems transition already underway. The work is iterative. It is imperfect. It requires unusual coalitions. But it is moving. Read more at tinyurl.com/28ftu58s

At Mumbai Climate Week, the India Climate Collaborative convened a timely roundtable: "After COP30 — What Next?: A Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue on Priorities for India & the Global South." Distinguished leaders from civil society, philanthropy, business, and global institutions came together to reflect on what COP30 achieved — and, more importantly, what it set in motion. The discussion examined the evolving role of non-state actors at global platforms, not merely as observers, but as shapers of outcomes; and explored how global engagement can translate into tangible acceleration of climate action across India and the Global South. We were honoured to have the COP30 Presidency join the session, underscoring how COP30 marked a meaningful shift toward closer alignment between state and non-state actors. @bruna_cerqueira, Director of the COP30 Action Agenda expressed, “At COP30, Countries agreed to decisively transition to an era of implementation in the Paris Agreement. Under the leadership of the Climate High Level Champions, the Global Climate Action Agenda of COPs brings together over 480 coalitions of Countries, subnational governments, businesses, investors and civil society who are willing to act. India and the Global South are hubs of solutions that make sense for better productivity, development and better lives as we all face climate change. We want to bring these solutions to the global stage and work together to enable speed and scale.” @Cop30noBrasil