The Climate Agenda was formally established in 2017 as a direct outcome of an Air Quality Monitoring and Advisory Campaign conducted in five Indian cities during 2016-17. The campaign, called Care4Air, was a community-led initiative supported by multiple stakeholders. Low-cost monitors were deployed at various locations alongside a regulatory-grade PDR device, with the aim of enriching public discourse using local data and evidence, particularly at a time when air quality discussions were primarily focused on Tier 1 cities.

Building on this foundation, air quality monitoring expanded to 40 locations across Uttar Pradesh. The Climate Agenda then joined a national campaign that contributed to the announcement of the National Clean Air Program (NCAP), and went on to support the development of city-level action plans for three cities in Uttar Pradesh – extending its influence from local data collection to shaping national policy frameworks.

This momentum carried into further policy contributions: the Uttar Pradesh State Solar Policy, the UP Electric Vehicle Policy 2019, the Solarizing UP Cities Scheme 2022, and equity-based decarbonization of brick kilns, among other initiatives. Each of these efforts combined multi-stakeholder communication campaigns with ground-level evidence, bringing climate issues into public discourse while guiding the government toward policies addressing critical climate concerns in the state. Over time, this same model of evidence-driven, collaborative advocacy has allowed The Climate Agenda’s work to expand steadily into newer regions and geographies.