The Climate Change Leaders Initiative at present is a pilot project in two regions of India: the North (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and agriculturally fertile Gangetic Plains area of Uttar Pradesh) and the Northeast (Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura and West Bengal).

The reason for selecting these particular regions is that both include the Himalayan Mountain ranges from where many glacial fed rivers like the Ganga and Brahmaputra originate; they influence climate of entire south Asia; are rich in biodiversity, and extremely sensitive and vulnerable to climate change.

The Eastern Himalayas are one of the world’s 25 Biodiversity Hotspot Regions, and the western Himalayas are extremely rich in forest ecosystem services. In fact ‘Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem’ is one of the Missions under the new National Action Plan on Climate Change released by the Government of India. In addition to their ecological importance, Lead has a strong network in place in the North and the North East.

The Purpose is to build a responsive and representative network of Climate leaders, to ensure that national policy makers are informed of regional climate change priorities in two regions, which can be used as a model for other regions in India and countries in South Asia.