Climate Change - Indian Law And Judiciary

• Published date: 02 June 2020
• Author: Vijay K. Sondhi, Faisal Sherwani and Achal Gupta
• Subject Matter: Environment, Government, Public Sector, Environmental Law, Constitutional & Administrative Law, Climate Change, Clean Air / Pollution
• Law Firm: L&L Partners

'Do not harm the environment;
Do not harm the water and flora;
Earth is my mother, I am her son;
May the waters remain fresh, do not harm the waters...
Tranquility be to the atmosphere, to the earth,
to the waters, to the crops and to the vegetation'

This Vedic wisdom manifests a philosophy of law and human governance based upon the idea of peaceful co-existence of the community. Welfare of each element of our eco-system is the welfare of each member of the community and ultimately, survival of each of us and of the earth is dependent upon it.

What is Climate?

Climate is the pattern of variation in temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, precipitation, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological variables in a given region over long periods. A region's climate is generated by the climate system, which has five components: atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude, terrain, and altitude as well as nearby water bodies and their currents.

What is Climate Change?

Climate Change is normally known as the variation in global and regional climates over time. It reflects changes in the variability or average state of the atmosphere over time scales ranging from decades to millions of years.

The earth's climate is dynamic and always changing through a natural cycle. What the world is more worried about today is that the changes that are occurring today have been speeded up. These changes may be caused by natural processes, for example continental rift, volcanoes, ocean currents, the earth's tilt, and comets and meteorites, as also those which are based on human activities or created by man. It is now well documented that in global warming happening today, human activities contribute maximum to its causes.

Climate Change presents to society as a whole a wide range of threats, and a narrower range of opportunity, on the political, economic and social level. It also poses questions and challenges for the law. These legal questions and challenges are relevant not just to the lawyers; but it affects all members of a society, whether as policy makers, business people, and campaigners of all hues or individual citizens.

Global Warming

Change in climate and global warming is one of the most serious challenges mankind has faced having its implications even on realization of the human rights. Even United Nations Human Right Council once observed, "Climate change poses immediate and far reaching threat to people and communities around the world and has implications for the full enjoyment of human rights".

Global warming is primarily a problem of excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere - atmosphere which acts as a blanket, trapping heat and warming the planet. As we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas for energy or cut down and burn forests to create pastures and plantations, carbon accumulates and overloads our atmosphere. Certain waste management and agricultural practices also aggravate the problem by releasing other potent global warming gases such as methane emitted from landfill and other waste dumps, during the process of oil drilling, coal mining and also from leaking gas pipe lines, and nitrous oxide emitted from fertilizer applications and leguminous plants such as beans and pulses.

Global warming is already under way with consequences that we face today as also shall tomorrow. Evidence of changes to the Earth's physical, chemical and biological processes is now evident on everybody. The climate change increases the risk of injury, illness, deaths from the resulting heat waves, wild fires, intense storms and flood; the global food production is at risk; the availability of the precious water commodity, its access and even its quality is threatened; we are experiencing shift in season cycle and the extreme wet or extreme dry weather; land ice is shrinking which causes sea level to rise, endangering coastal communities and the ground water supply, making the ocean more acidic and thus threatening even the sea life; loss of natural habitat of the animals is resulting into making the species extinct; we have been experiencing droughts to floods; and the temperature, whether of ocean, water or ground is rising. The minimum temperature in Antarctica is recently reported to be above 00 Celcius and maximum at about 9.20 Celcius. In short, the impact of global warming is on every sphere of life. Considering the huge impact of climate change on mankind, the United Nation referred the year 2009 as the 'Year of Climate Change'...