Varsha Nair is a Senior Program Associate with the Climate, Economics and Finance program at WRI India, where she supports national and subnational governments in advancing climate action by designing low-carbon development pathways, integrating climate resilience into planning and infrastructure systems and strengthening climate policy formulation and implementation across sectors.

Before joining WRI India, Varsha led national and international projects, especially in Asia and African regions on climate policy, climate finance, risk mechanism strategies and urban development. She led Palau’s enhanced NDC submission to the UNFCCC and contributed to several GCF-funded projects across nations. In India, she supported the Rebuild Kerala Initiative by Government of Kerala on climate tagging and budgeting, disaster risk-informed planning, capacity building and development of a state-level Debt Management Plan. She has supported initiatives related to urban planning law reforms, Disaster Climate Action Tracker (DCAT) and integration of downscaled climate models into local governance at the urban local body level.

Varsha holds Master’s degree in Urban Planning with a specialization in Land Use Planning from CEPT University, Ahmedabad, and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Indus University, Ahmedabad.

Outside of work, she is an avid volleyball player (accredited with the title of 34th senior state volleyball player of Gujarat), artist, and an avid traveller.