A half-hearted climate change verdict Premium

If the Supreme Court were to achieve the positive potential of declaring climate as a fundamental right, it should be directing the government to re-examine mega-industrial extractive projects

The Supreme Court of India’s extension of the constitutional rights to life and equality, to the right to be free of ill-effects of climate change, is a potential ray of hope in the midst of a gloomy ecological scenario. The world is staring at multiple collapses with historically unprecedented impacts on humans and the rest of life, as we race towards a 1.5° (and who knows how much more) Celsius rise in average temperatures. Governments across the planet have failed to act on the overwhelming scientific evidence of this scenario.

The judgment has significant potential to be converted into actions that can undo, mitigate, or help adaptation to the ill-impacts of the climate crisis. The Court’s observations regarding the disproportionate share of impacts felt by already marginalised sections of society, can be the basis for much-needed corrective action.

But the judgment also contains deep flaws that could undermine such potential. We will not go into its orders regarding the conservation of the Great Indian Bustard, the threat to whose habitat by mega-energy in western India was the core matter of the petition. Here, we deal with the power and climate aspects. The Court states that harnessing solar and wind power is crucial to meet India’s climate commitments, made by the Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, at the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties in 2021. These include net zero carbon emissions by 2070, generation of 500 GW by non-fossil fuel sources and a 50% share of total power generation to renewable energy by 2030. Any obstructions to these, the judgment says, will lead to greater coal-based production, with dire consequences for the climate.

The Court has tried to balance the need for land (and airspace) for solar and wind energy production in Rajasthan and Gujarat, with the imperative of protecting the bustard. In doing so, however, it has not interrogated several problematic aspects of India’s proposed energy transition.

For one, the government includes, in ‘non-fossil-fuel’ and ‘renewable’ energy, large hydropower and nuclear plants. There is nothing benign about these. Construction of mega-dams in the Himalaya has caused destabilisation, biodiversity loss, and displacement of communities. Nuclear power has led to forced displacement, curtailment of democratic rights as it is shrouded in secrecy, and the fear of centuries of contamination by untreatable nuclear wastes.

Second, mega-solar and wind projects too have huge adverse impacts. For instance, the huge Pavagada Solar Park in Karnataka, has taken away grazing and agricultural land, and destroyed wildlife. In Changthang, Ladakh, a proposed 13 GW solar project will take up over 20,000 acres of fragile ecosystem, crucial for unique wildlife and nomadic pastoralism that produces the famous Pashmina wool.

Another one, proposed over 1,400 acres next to the Chhari Dhand Conservation Reserve in Kachchh, Gujarat, could destroy an important bird area as also the livelihoods of Maldhari pastoralists. Unfortunately, such renewable energy projects are excluded from environmental impact assessment (EIA) and clearance procedures, so their impacts are not even assessed.