Nivedita Joshi

Nivedita is a PlanAdapt Fellow based in Pune, India.

Nivedita has worked as a researcher for over 8 years and her work has explored linkages between climate change and livelihoods, in the Global South. Within this, she examines questions of what makes communities vulnerable to climate change and what are the barriers and enablers for people to adapt to climate change and why. She has experience working on projects related to adaptation and loss and damage associated with climate change. Her experience spans across research, consulting and policy engagement in dynamic climate change hotspots across Africa and South Asia, particularly in semi-arid regions.

Nivedita has recently conducted extensive research on loss and damage from climate change in India, including a systematic literature review and an emperical study on loss and damage assciated with heat in Nagpur, India. She has also conducted research in North Central Namibia as part of the Adaptation at Scale in Semi-Arid Areas (ASSAR) project. The research involved looking at the barriers to adaptation among livestock farmers in the drought-prone region. Through this work, she explored livelihood diversification as an adaptation strategy through reviewing successful case studies in similar scenarios.

Moreover, she has contributed to a chapter on gendered climate vulnerability in urban areas to UCCRN’s Third Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities. She has also worked on content development for the Climate Change MOOC project, collaborating with IPCC WG Co-chairs, taught and mentored Urban Fellows of the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS) on climate change impacts on coastal communities. She recently attended COP28 as part of the Climate Action Network (CAN-International) Secretariat, collaborating with policy team to develop relevant outputs for the Adaptation and Loss and Damage Working Groups in line with negotiation objectives.

Nivedita holds a MSc. in Climate Change and Sustainable Development from the University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics (Hons) from Adelphi University, New York, United States. She also has certificates in Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change (UNU-EHS and GIZ), Climate Change and Mitigation in Developing Countries (University of Cape Town) and Age of Sustainable Development (Columbia University).

For more information, see Nivedita’s LinkedIn Profile, Google Scholar Page and Medium.