UPSC EDITORIAL ANALYSIS – Court on climate right and how India can enforce it
Kartavya Desk Staff
Source: The Hindu
• Prelims: Current events of international importance, COP, IPCC, Article 21, Article 14, CJI, Pavagada Solar Park etc
• Mains GS Paper II: Bilateral, regional and global grouping and agreements involving India or affecting India’s interests, Important international institutions etc
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
• In K. Ranjitsinh and Ors. vs Union of India & Ors, the Supreme Court has advocated the right to ‘be free from the adverse effects of climate change’, identifying both the right to life and the right to equality as its sources.
INSIGHTS ON THE ISSUE
Context
Supreme Court judgment on climate change:
#### Basis for reaching this judgment:
#### ● Building electricity transmission lines can be built through the habitat of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard.
#### ● Government claim: Previous court order protecting the bird’s habitat had affected the country’s renewable energy potential.
#### ● Court prioritized transmission infrastructure to enable accelerated development of renewable energy to address climate change.
#### ○ It minted ‘climate right’ rooted in the constitutionally guaranteed right to life (Article 21) and right to equality (Article 14).
#### Issues with the judgment:
#### ● Court overstate the large-scale clean energy agenda as the main pathway to avoiding climate harms
#### ○ It understated climate adaptation and local environmental resilience
#### ● Court-based action through enhanced litigation around climate claims, will lead to an incomplete patchwork of (judiciary-led) protections.
#### ● Realizing climate rights could become contingent on the passage of several subsequent policy actions.
#### ● A patchwork approach is less likely to chart an overarching framework to guide future policy.
#### ● The judgment itself states that there is no ‘umbrella legislation’ in India that relates to climate change.
#### ○ It recognises the merits of an overarching, framework legislation.
#### Framework legislation:
#### ● It can set the vision for engaging with climate change across sectors and regions
#### ● It can create necessary institutions and endow them with powers
#### ● It can put in place processes for structured and deliberative governance in anticipation of and reaction to climate change.
#### India and Climate legislation:
• India needs to transition to a low-carbon energy future, an imperative that is highlighted in the Ranjitsinh judgment. It is not enough to enforce a right against the adverse effects of climate change.
• It is not enough to enforce a right against the adverse effects of climate change.
• Climate legislation should create a supportive regulatory environment for more sustainable cities, buildings, and transport networks.
• It should enable adaptation measures such as heat action plans sensitive to local context.
• It should provide mechanisms for shifting to more climate-resilient crops.
• It should protect key ecosystems such as mangroves that act as a buffer against extreme weather events.
• It should actively consider questions of social equity in how it achieves these tasks.
• It should provide a way of mainstreaming and internalizing climate change considerations into how India develops.
Challenges:
• Having a single, omnibus law that covers all these areas is not feasible, particularly in the face of an existing legal framework that legislates on most of these issues.
• It is impossible to anticipate upfront all the ways in which society can and should prepare for climate change.
Global practice:
• The United Kingdom: It focuses narrowly on regulating carbon emissions for example, by setting regular five yearly national carbon budgets and then putting in place mechanisms to meet them. This sort of approach has become a template for countries to follow It is ill-suited to India.
• for example, by setting regular five yearly national carbon budgets and then putting in place mechanisms to meet them.
• This sort of approach has become a template for countries to follow
• It is ill-suited to India.
What kind of climate legislation India needs?
• India is still developing, is highly vulnerable, and yet to build much of its infrastructure. India needs a law that enables progress toward both low-carbon and climate resilient development.
• India needs a law that enables progress toward both low-carbon and climate resilient development.
Regulatory law(U.K):
• It focuses, in a narrow way, on emissions and how they can be limited.
Enabling law(Kenya):
• It can be written to stimulate development-focused decisions in a range of sectors across the economy — urban, agriculture, water, energy and so on This approach emphasizes adaptation as much as mitigation.
• This approach emphasizes adaptation as much as mitigation.
• An enabling law is likely to be a more procedurally-oriented law
• It systematically creates the institutions, processes and standards for mainstreaming climate change across diverse ministries and different parts of society.
• Such law would build in procedures to support knowledge-sharing, ensuring transparency and avenues for public participation and expert consultation prompting meaningful setting (and revision) of targets and timelines and reporting against these.
• prompting meaningful setting (and revision) of targets and timelines and reporting against these.
Way Forward
• Ensure that the law works effectively within Indian federalism.
• An Indian climate law must simultaneously set a framework for coherent national action while decentralizing sufficiently to empower States and local governments, and enable them with information and finance to take effective action.
• The enabling role should ideally extend beyond government. Business, civil society and communities, particularly those on the frontlines of climate impacts, have essential knowledge to bring to energy transition and resilience.
• Business, civil society and communities, particularly those on the frontlines of climate impacts, have essential knowledge to bring to energy transition and resilience.
• Finding ways of enabling participation in decision making would enable all these sections of society to bring their knowledge to the table in addressing climate change.
• An effective Indian climate law based on enabling procedures would also provide opportunities for voice to diverse segments of society.
QUESTION FOR PRACTICE
• Describe the major outcomes of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). What are the commitments made by the India conference? (UPSC 2021)
(200 WORDS, 10 MARKS)
Editorial Analysis – 1 July 2024 [PDF]