Experts warn India’s 2026–27 Budget prioritises GDP-led growth while underfunding climate resilience, pollution control and ecosystem protection, risking long-term economic, health and environmental stability.
As climate disasters intensify across India, environmental protection and climate resilience remain seriously underfunded in the Union Budget 2026–27, triggering concern among experts who warn that the country’s economic priorities are drifting dangerously out of step with ecological realities.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Budget in Parliament on Sunday, outlining a growth strategy centred on infrastructure expansion, investment and GDP-led development. However, environmental experts say the Budget once again treats nature and ecosystems as peripheral, despite mounting evidence that climate change is already inflicting heavy social and economic costs.
“India’s Budget continues to treat the environment as a side issue, even as climate shocks are disrupting lives, livelihoods and the economy,” said environmental expert Swati Nandi Chakraborty. “Growth that ignores forests, rivers, air and water is not sustainable growth. It is deferred economic damage.”
India has in recent years been battered by extreme heatwaves, floods, cyclones, landslides and glacial incidents, alongside worsening air and water pollution. These events have disrupted livelihoods, damaged crops, strained health systems and imposed rising disaster management costs. Yet public spending on environmental protection and climate adaptation remains strikingly limited.
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change received an allocation of Rs 3,759.46 crore for 2026–27, an increase of around 8–10 per cent over last year’s Budget Estimate. While the percentage rise appears notable, experts stress that the absolute amount is disproportionately small for one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable countries.
Funding for pollution control has fallen to Rs 1,091 crore from Rs 1,300 crore in the previous revised estimates, despite toxic air continuing to pose a severe public health emergency in major cities.
“Reducing pollution control funding at a time of worsening air quality sends a deeply worrying signal,” said environmental economist Soumendramohan Ghosh. “This is no longer only an environmental concern. It is a public health emergency that requires far stronger fiscal commitment.”
Experts also point to a persistent gap between allocations and actual spending in recent years, raising questions about political commitment and implementation capacity.
The Budget, they argue, reflects a development model that prioritises short-term economic expansion while overlooking the long-term value of ecosystems.
“The Budget is still guided by a GDP-first mindset where nature is treated as expendable,” Ghosh added. “But ecological degradation inevitably shows up as higher health costs, disaster losses and long-term fiscal stress.”
Climate adaptation, wetland conservation and large-scale ecosystem restoration have received no major push, even though environmental degradation directly increases health expenditures, agricultural losses and disaster-related spending. Infrastructure built without respecting ecological limits, including roads, urban expansions and industrial zones, risks turning into stranded assets as climate risks intensify.
Although the Budget repeatedly refers to green growth and sustainable development, critics describe these commitments as largely symbolic.
“There is extensive green language in the Budget, but very limited green spending,” Chakraborty said. “Without serious investment in adaptation and ecosystem protection, sustainability remains a slogan rather than a governing strategy.”
A closer look at sector-wise allocations reveals incremental adjustments rather than transformative investment. Funding has increased modestly for regulatory and scientific institutions such as the National Green Tribunal, while flagship wildlife conservation programmes remain largely static. The Green India Mission has seen an uptick from last year’s revised low, but still falls short of earlier ambitions.
Beyond the environment ministry, analysts say the deeper problem lies in how climate change is handled within public finance. Climate risks continue to be pigeonholed within environment and renewable energy portfolios, even though climate impacts cut across health, labour, agriculture, housing and urban development.
Despite rising deaths from heat stress and climate-sensitive diseases, there is little targeted funding for climate health preparedness. Similarly, the vulnerability of India’s vast informal workforce, exposed daily to extreme heat, rain and humidity, remains largely unaddressed in fiscal planning.
According to the Germanwatch Climate Risk Index 2026, India has suffered inflation-adjusted economic losses of about USD 170 billion over the past three decades due to extreme weather events. The Reserve Bank of India estimates that adapting to climate change could require additional annual investment of around 2.5 per cent of GDP until 2030.
Experts argue that without integrating a climate lens across all ministries through tools such as climate budgeting and climate tagging, India’s economic planning will remain ill-equipped to handle the scale and interconnected nature of the crisis.
“A truly future-ready economy cannot be built on fragile ecosystems,” Chakraborty noted. “Climate resilience, water security and food security are as essential to economic stability as infrastructure and industry.”
As India positions itself as a future-ready economy, analysts say the unresolved question is whether long-term growth can remain credible without safeguarding the natural systems that underpin health, livelihoods and economic resilience.
