Climate change accounted for only 3.3% of all questions asked in India’s Parliament in the ten years after the Paris Agreement, according to a new report released in New Delhi on 1 October. The study, from the Centre for Financial Accountability (Cenfa), argues that parliamentary scrutiny has not kept pace with India’s exposure to extreme weather.
The report, Climate on the Floor: India’s Parliamentary Discourse on Environment since the Paris Agreement, was written by Hajira Puthige. It covers December 2015, when the Paris Agreement was adopted, to December 2025. According to Cenfa, the dataset has 8,702 questions from both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha. Of these, 713 were starred questions, which get an oral reply, and 7,989 were unstarred, which get a written reply.
Where MPs looked, and where they did not
The researchers sorted the questions into eight themes. Clean energy and decarbonisation drew the largest share, 37.7% of the climate-related questions, which Cenfa says fits India’s high-profile international targets.
At the other end, climate finance made up just 0.3%, and global climate governance 1.3%. In plain terms, for every 1,000 climate-related questions, roughly three were about how climate action is paid for. Cenfa calls both areas significant blind spots.
The report also finds that attention is driven by events. Questions rise after major disasters, such as the Uttarakhand glacier burst of February 2021, according to a summary of the findings. Cenfa describes this as reacting to shock-value events rather than providing steady oversight of long-term preparedness.
What this means for India
Parliamentary questions are one of the main ways MPs hold ministries to account. Cenfa says India has built climate commitments into its institutions, but oversight has not yet become a systematic check on delivery. The thin coverage of climate finance matters because adaptation and clean-energy spending depend on money being raised and tracked. For Indian readers, the findings point to a practical gap: debate on preparedness, funding and implementation, not only on targets and technology.
The launch and what the report recommends
Releasing the report, Congress MP and former environment minister Jairam Ramesh said concern about climate is far greater than a decade ago. In his words: “Yet there has not been much debate in Parliament despite ten years of the Paris Agreement.” The Wire reported his remarks.
The report argues that parliamentary debate should move beyond individual disasters and technology-led responses. It calls for more attention to adaptation, climate finance, implementation and accountability.
A caution on comparisons
An earlier study by Azim Premji University researchers looked at Lok Sabha questions from 1999 to 2019. It found 895 climate-related questions, about 0.3% of the total, according to Mongabay-India. That work used a keyword search, and the two studies cover different periods and define climate differently. The figures are therefore not directly comparable, though both point to a small share of parliamentary time.
The full report is available on the Cenfa website.
Sources
- 10 Years After Paris Agreement, Just 3.3% Parliament Questions Were About Climate: Study – The Wire
- Climate on the Floor – Centre for Financial Accountability
- Only 3.3% of 8,702 parliamentary questions in 10 years accounted for Climate Change in India – Vartha Bharati
- New Report Reveals What India’s MPs Asked (and What They Didn’t) on Climate – Countercurrents
- Parliamentary discussions related to climate change are largely missing in India, finds study – Mongabay-India
