Addressing Today’s Environmental Challenges: Justice and Climate Change

Environmental law is no longer just about protecting forests, rivers, and endangered species. Today, it sits at the intersection of some of the most urgent questions of our time – who bears the burden of environmental harm, and who gets to demand justice? In India, as temperatures rise, monsoons shift, and industrial expansion continues to reshape landscapes, two challenges have moved to the centre of environmental law: environmental justice and climate change governance. Understanding these challenges is essential not just for law students, but for anyone who wants to make sense of how law shapes – and is shaped by – the climate crisis.

What is environmental justice, and why does it matter? 🔗

Environmental justice starts from a straightforward observation: environmental harm is not distributed equally. Pollution, displacement from forests, loss of agricultural land to industrial projects, and the severest effects of climate change fall disproportionately on those who are already socially and economically marginalized. In India’s context, this means Adivasi (indigenous) communities, Dalits, women, and low-income households consistently absorb the worst environmental costs while having the least voice in decisions that affect their lives.

According to data from the Environmental Justice Atlas, India has the highest number of documented environmental conflicts globally – around 340 reported cases – and Adivasi communities have been at the forefront of resistance in more than 57% of them. Whether it is chromite mining devastating health in Odisha’s Sakinda valley, or iron ore extraction eating into the Saranda forests of Jharkhand, the pattern is consistent: the consequences of poorly designed environmental protection mechanisms manifest as a denial of justice to indigenous populations, impacting their health, economy, cultural heritage, and autonomy.

The situation for Dalit communities follows a similar trajectory. The caste system has historically confined Dalit communities to marginal, often degraded lands, making them disproportionately vulnerable to natural disasters, floods, droughts, and environmental disasters. Decades of caste-designated occupations and forced settlement near industrial sites, dumping grounds, and polluting factories have concentrated environmental risk at the bottom of the social hierarchy. As one assessment of Odisha found, Dalit youth disproportionately lost lives and livelihoods during cyclones – a stark illustration of how social inequality becomes environmental inequality.

The gender dimension 🔗

Environmental injustice in India also has a clearly gendered face. Although women comprise over 70% of India’s agricultural labour force, they remain largely unrecognized as farmers under disaster relief frameworks, particularly in patriarchal and caste-based structures. In states like Assam and Bihar, women displaced by floods have been excluded from compensation packages simply because land titles remained in male names and documentation was inaccessible to them. This is not merely a policy gap – it reflects structural unfairness baked into how environmental law and disaster law are designed and implemented.

Environmental law’s response to justice claims 🔗

India’s formal environmental law framework has developed considerably since the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment (1972), which prompted a wave of domestic legislation including the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, and the foundational Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. More recently, the National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 created a dedicated judicial body for environmental disputes.

However, having laws on the books has not been enough. Experts have pointed out that many environmental regulations enacted over the past decade have not been implemented, and a troubling shift from a precautionary approach (assessing environmental impact before projects begin) to a compensatory approach (paying for damage after the fact) has weakened protection in practice. Additionally, the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and the Land Acquisition Act, 2013 contain provisions intended to protect Adivasi and Dalit communities, but their implementation remains inconsistent and often inadequate.

The core challenge is not just legislation – it is who environmental law is designed to protect, and whether governance structures actively include the most vulnerable. Reframing environmental justice must be a structural process, occurring simultaneously within legal and governance institutions, not treated as an afterthought to economic development or conservation goals.

Climate change as a legal challenge 🔗

Climate change presents a qualitatively different challenge from earlier environmental problems. It is diffuse, cumulative, and global in origin – yet hyper-local in its impacts. For environmental law, this raises hard questions: who is responsible, how are obligations enforced, and what legal frameworks can actually drive meaningful action?

The international framework: Paris Agreement and India’s commitments 🔗

At the international level, the primary instrument governing climate action is the Paris Agreement (2015), adopted by 196 countries under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Its central goal is to limit average global temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and to pursue efforts to keep it within 1.5°C.

Under the Paris Agreement, each country submits a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) – a national climate action plan outlining how it intends to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts. India ratified the Paris Agreement in October 2016 and submitted its first NDC, which was subsequently updated in August 2022. Under India’s updated NDC, the country committed to reducing the emissions intensity of its GDP by 45% by 2030 from 2005 levels, and to achieving 50% of its cumulative electric power installed capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2030. These goals also translate India’s Panchamrit pledges announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021, which include a long-term target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070.

India has made notable progress. By June 2025, India had achieved the NDC target of 50% non-fossil installed electric power capacity – five years ahead of the 2030 deadline. India also saw a 91.5% increase in renewable energy investment between 2023 and 2024, with record solar and wind capacity. Despite this, independent assessments have flagged structural challenges: continued coal construction, the absence of a coal phase-out plan, and the need for stronger, economy-wide greenhouse gas targets that go beyond intensity reductions.

An important legal dimension of the NDC framework is that the pledges are voluntary in nature – countries face no legal penalty under international law for failing to meet their NDC targets, though they are obligated to monitor progress and report failures. Some countries like the United Kingdom and Chile have incorporated NDCs into national law, making climate commitments legally binding at the domestic level – a model India has not yet adopted, though calls for dedicated climate legislation are growing.

India’s domestic legal architecture on climate 🔗

India does not yet have a single, unified climate change law. However, its statutory landscape has evolved significantly. Beyond the foundational environmental statutes, the Energy Conservation Act, 2001 was amended in 2022 to introduce a carbon credit trading scheme. The Electricity (Promoting Renewable Energy Through Green Energy Open Access) Rules, 2022 incentivise access to renewable energy. The National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) operates as the overarching policy framework, comprising nine national missions covering solar energy, water, agriculture, the Himalayan ecosystem, energy efficiency, sustainable habitat, and more. Thirty-four States and Union Territories have also prepared State Action Plans on Climate Change (SAPCCs) to align state-level action with national goals.

The constitutional breakthrough: climate change as a fundamental right 🔗

Perhaps the most significant recent development in India’s environmental law landscape came from the Supreme Court. In M.K. Ranjitsinh & Ors. v. Union of India & Ors. (2024), a three-judge bench led by then Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud delivered a landmark ruling that recognised the right against the adverse impacts of climate change as intertwined with the right to life and equality embedded in the Indian Constitution.

The Court drew on Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty) and Article 14 (right to equality) to construct what it called a constitutional right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change. The reasoning was direct: without a clean and stable environment, the right to life cannot be fully realised. The Court also elevated otherwise non-justiciable constitutional duties – such as Article 48A, which directs the State to protect the environment, and Article 51A(g), which requires citizens to safeguard the natural environment – to the status of enforceable rights through its interpretation.

Critically, the judgment did not treat climate change as a generic environmental problem. The Court expressly recognised that certain groups – including indigenous and tribal communities, women, low-income households, and inhabitants of ecologically vulnerable areas like Lakshadweep – are particularly and unequally vulnerable to climate impacts. By linking this vulnerability to the right to equality under Article 14, the Court effectively placed an obligation on the State to ensure that marginalized communities are not left behind in climate adaptation and response.

The case itself arose from a dispute about overhead power transmission lines through the habitat of the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard – a classic tension between renewable energy expansion and biodiversity protection. The Court’s broader climate rights pronouncements were made in this context, which led some commentators to note that while the ruling is path-breaking, it remains more of a legal framework than a set of enforceable, concrete directives. India joins a growing global chorus of rights-based climate litigation, alongside decisions such as the Dutch Urgenda case and Montana’s Held v. State (2024), where courts have used constitutional frameworks to compel climate action.

The gap between law and reality 🔗

One of the most pressing contemporary challenges in environmental law is the gap between formal legal commitments and on-the-ground reality. India has nearly 12 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world, and yet environmental law litigation – especially climate litigation – still accounts for a small fraction of cases in Indian courts. Enforcement mechanisms remain underfunded, regulatory bodies are often stretched thin, and many environmental approvals continue to proceed through a weakened impact assessment regime.

The principle of Common But Differentiated Responsibilities (CBDR-RC), which underpins India’s international climate diplomacy, reflects an important equity argument: developed countries bear historical responsibility for the bulk of accumulated greenhouse gas emissions, and developing nations like India need financial and technological support for a just transition. India’s updated NDC explicitly states that its climate actions have so far been largely financed from domestic resources, while calling for developed countries to deliver on their financial commitments under the UNFCCC.

Domestically, the challenge is ensuring that the transition to clean energy does not simply replicate old injustices in new forms. Adivasi communities who bore the historical brunt of coal extraction risk revictimization during an energy transition – for instance, if solar farms are built on land they depend on, without their meaningful consent or benefit. Sustainable development, in this sense, requires more than renewable energy targets; it requires governance frameworks that are genuinely inclusive and accountable to those most affected.

The path forward: equitable legal frameworks 🔗

Addressing today’s environmental challenges demands more than incremental legal reform. Experts and scholars increasingly argue for a dedicated, integrated climate law in India – one that provides institutional certainty, sets enforceable targets across sectors, and embeds climate justice considerations at its core. Such a law would need to go beyond emissions intensity targets and renewable energy goals to address adaptation, disaster relief, community consent, and equitable resource access for the groups most exposed to climate risk.

The Ranjitsinh judgment has provided constitutional scaffolding for this project. But scaffolding is not a building. India needs adequate enforcement of existing environmental laws, a return to the precautionary principle, and the integration of socio-economic rights into its climate crisis response – because without economic justice, the climate crisis cannot be tackled in ways that are fair or durable.

Environmental law, at its best, is not just a technical regulatory enterprise. It is a mechanism through which societies decide who matters, whose losses count, and who has the right to demand redress. In a country as diverse and unequal as India, getting this right is both a legal imperative and a moral one.

What do you think? India’s Supreme Court has declared the right to be free from climate change’s adverse effects a fundamental right – but the country still lacks a unified climate law. Does constitutional recognition alone create meaningful accountability, or does it take targeted legislation to translate rights into real-world outcomes for the most vulnerable communities? And given that climate change disproportionately harms those who have contributed least to it – Adivasis, Dalits, women farmers – how should environmental law prioritise their voices in governance decisions?

References

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