Planning for India’s energy future requires addressing multiple and simultaneous economic, social and environmental challenges. While there has been conceptual progress towards harnessing their synergies, there are limited methodologies available for operationalizing a multiple objective framework for development and climate policy. We propose a ‘multi-criteria decision analysis’ (MCDA) approach to this problem, using illustrative examples from the cooking and buildings sectors. An MCDA approach enables policy processes that are analytically rigorous, participative and transparent, which are required to address India’s complex energy and climate challenges.

This work was done in collaboration with Center for Policy Research (CPR) and the Energy Research Center (ERC) at University of Cape Town.

This approach was presented at the TISS Climate Conference 2015 held at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, followed by policy brief published by CPR in August 2015. A paper based on this work was published in the December 5 2015 issue of Economic and Political Weekly and a case study based on this work was included in a review article published in the 'Climate and Development' journal.