The Union government reconstituted the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change on Wednesday to coordinate the National Action Plan for Assessment, Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change.

The 18-member council retains R.K. Pachauri, Chairperson of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change; Chandrashekhar Dasgupta, Distinguished Fellow, TERI; and Nitin Desai, economist. Raj Chengappa and R. Ramachandran, journalists; Sunita Narain, director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment; Ratan Tata, industrialist; and the former Environment Secretary Prodipto Ghosh have been dropped. It has re-nominated Ajay Mathur, head of the Bureau of Energy Efficiency, and included the Union Ministers for Coal and Power and Urban Development. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) constituted the council first in 2007, but it had not met for over three years. Official sources said the attempt was to revive and streamline the council and set the agenda to deal with climate change.

The council has Ministers for External Affairs, Finance, Environment, Forests and Climate Change, Agriculture, Science and Technology, and Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation and the Cabinet Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister, who is the convener, and J.M. Mauskar, formerly with the Environment Ministry.

The new council will coordinate the action plan and advise the government on proactive measures that can be taken by India to deal with the challenge of climate change, an official statement said. It will facilitate inter-ministerial coordination and guide policy in relevant areas. The council will evolve a coordinated response to issues relating to climate change at the national level, provide oversight for formulation of action plans in the area of assessment, adaptation and mitigation of climate change and periodically monitor key policy decisions.

The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change will assist the Prime Minister’s Office in facilitating the work of the council.

In the previous council, the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh included Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission; R. Chidambaram, the then Principal Scientific Adviser to the Prime Minister; V. Krishnamurthy, Chairperson, National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council; and C. Rangarajan, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council.

The composition of the reconstituted Prime Minister's Council on Climate Change is as follows:

Prime Minister

Minister for External Affairs

Finance Minister

Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change

Minister for Water Resources, River Development and Ganga Rejuvenation

Minister for Agriculture

Minister for Urban Development

Minister for Science and Technology

MoS (Power, Coal and NRE)

Cabinet Secretary

Foreign Secretary

Secretary, Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change

Dr. R. K. Pachauri, Chairperson, TERI

Dr. Nitin Desai

Mr. Chandrasekar Dasgupta

Mr. Ajay Mathur, Chairperson, BEE

Mr. J.M. Mouskar

Principal Secretary to PM