India, July 6 -- Across rural India, the climate crisis is no longer a future risk, it is a lived reality. Villages are experiencing falling groundwater levels, erratic rainfall, rising temperatures, declining soil fertility, biodiversity loss, and increasing pressure on livelihoods. Yet, despite these interconnected challenges, village planning often continues to operate through disconnected departmental schemes and annual infrastructure wish lists.

The irony is that the institution best positioned to respond to climate change already exists--the gram panchayat.

Every year, gram panchayats prepare the gram panchayat development plan (GPDP), India's most extensive local planning exercise. But while GPDPs determine investments in roads, ...