Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), New Delhi
Research Intern: Risks & Adaptation (RAP)

Terms of Reference

Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) has been Great Place to Work-Certified™.

At CEEW, we are deliberate about what we stand for (and what we don’t stand for!) as an employer. So, if the below description strikes a chord, we would love to hear from you!

At CEEW, we build careers in public policy

• We offer strong visionary leadership – with emphasis on research and impact at scale​
• We actively promote leadership by initiative​
• We celebrate talent and ambition​
• You will be surrounded by smart people who will challenge you and help you grow​
• You will learn faster than your peers in other organization’s​
• Curiosity and irreverence as well as responsibility come together at CEEW​
• You will get above-market remuneration​
• We provide a safe space for all​
• At CEEW, your life is your example for others​

Designation offered : Research Intern - Risk and Adaptation

Reporting to : Programme Lead

Location : Delhi, India

Duration : 3 months

No of Positions : 2 

Project Description : Developing a Climate Risk Atlas

Background & Context

As per recent studies 800million people are at risk due to climate change only in India. These number are likely to increase by four-fold if an integrated approach is not adopted. Climate change will contribute in making rainfall erratic, there by leading to rising seas which will further intensify the weather events to extreme levels. As a result, increase in occurrence of floods, drought and heat waves will be witnessed. From a risk perspective, the climate change is primarily a risk management problem and ideally climate change policies should target in limiting the probability of a very bad outcome to an unacceptably small value (GAR, 2017).

Many studies are commissioned to look at understanding the nature of impacts across sectors under climate change scenario’ but what it lacked is quantifying the risks, so that effective management of these risks can be phased into policy planning, designing and implementation there by optimizing the resource allocation. Until now disaster preparedness is based on corpus allocation of the public expenditure under extreme weather events. 
The Climate Risk Atlas (CRA) is a risk informed decision-making toolkit and will try to answer the underlying questions pertinent to climate risk management by quantifying the impact of climate change on various sectors in form of a risk index.  

The CRA will help in addressing the following underlying perspectives

• Understanding the perception of “Risks” and identifying the underlying risk drivers across sectors which can provide a strong rationale for pursuing development pathways.
• Estimate and project the degree of disaster risks associated with different kinds of hazards faced by specific sectors by the national economies in India through regional down scaling (South Asia).

The project is aimed to develop a region-specific climate risk atlas with specificity to India for specific hazards like flood, drought, cyclones and heatwaves through a climatology interfaced risk model to predict the degree of risk (quantifying the losses) for an effective risk informed decision-making process. This will also lead to creation of a robust data base on the vulnerability index of the elements at risk across regions there by estimating the probable minimum and maximum loss. 

Job Duties and Accountabilities

Research

The research intern is expected to assist researchers in the team in the following:

• Contribute in desk-top research for exhaustive review of available information and data pertaining vulnerability index of elements at risk across sectors.
• A coalition of the secondary infrastructure CSV files for vulnerability analysis.
• Preparation of vulnerability maps based on the available (location) CSV's.
• Creating a sector-specific database for the hazard-specific location which can feed into the climatology analysed datasheets.
• Creating shape files for sectorial hazard and vulnerability analysis.
• Help in integrating risk metrics RI toolkit.
• Preparing GIS based climate hazards hot spots.
• Assist in preparing an exposure data sheet and vulnerability maps
• Inform risk hazard application tool base.

Programme assistance

• Respond to research requests from senior researchers, discuss research needs, and prepare responses that synthesise and analyse information.
• Assist with programme implementation, including help with preparing presentations.
• Assist with building a database and relationships with a wider community of experts, scholars, institutions and potential donors in the energy, environment and water domains.
• Assist with planning and executing events such as report launches, consultation workshops, round table discussions, etc.
• Contribute to reports and other research products as part of the research team.
• Participate constructively in weekly team meetings.

CEEW operates in a dynamic environment and the candidate will be required to show flexibility in undertaking a variety of tasks. 

Application 

CEEW is an equal opportunity employer and the selection process does not discriminate on the basis of age, gender, caste, ethnicity, religion, or sexuality. Female candidates are encouraged to apply.

Interested candidates are requested to share their curriculum vitae (CV) and cover letter explaining your interest in the position (in one document preferably PDF) and send it to: jobs@ceew.in with ‘Application: Intern – Risk & Adaptation’ as the subject line by 31 January 2021. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis. Only shortlisted candidates will be notified by us.