Needed: SC monitored high power committee to examine escalating climate change threat

By Shankar Sharma* 

There is an urgent need to expand the scope of the Supreme Court’s judgement on how climate crisis impacts citizens’ right to life to effectively address calamitous threats of climate change to our people.

Some of the recent statements and views attributed to the justices of the Supreme Court of India point towards serious societal level concerns with regards to the escalating consequences of unacceptable exploitation/ degradation of natural resources in the country.

These concerns clearly echo the serious concerns of the larger civil society also, on some of the associated scenarios in the country.

The larger civil society believes that there is so much apathy among the bureaucrats and politicians on such environment related issues, that such statements/ views of even the justices of Supreme Court of India seem to have no effect on them.  

Such an attitude in the official circles is exemplified by the fact that even the very serious concerns expressed by the former CJI SA Bobde, who back in Feb 2020 had opined that (polluting) thermal plants be shut to prevent further environmental pollution, had no discernible action at all at the national level. 

There has been no indication that any of the polluting coal power plants has been shut down even after four years of such a statement by the then CJI.  On the contrary, scores of additional coal power plants and new coal mines are being planned/ implemented at humongous cost to the country, even though there are multiple and benign options available to meet the legitimate demand for electricity in the country.

However, such statements/ views alone, even by the justices of SC of India, without a formal order of the Court are unlikely to have any influence on the policies/ practices of successive governments as far as environmental protection is concerned.  

Hence, there is a need for SC that a to our country, and recommend credible action plan to satisfactorily address such threats, and also to prepare a comprehensive national policy encompassing various sectors of our economy so as to put our developmental paradigm on a green and sustainable pathway.  

Such recommendations should be made mandatory for implementation by all the successive governments. 

In the recent past, multiple civil society efforts to persuade our authorities to take cognisance of the serious threats of climate change have failed to yield any concrete action plan on the ground, and they include multiple representations on specific and larger issues to the Ministry of Power and Non-conventional Energy Sources, Niti Aayog, Prime Minister's Office (power and energy related issues, and suitable alternatives to the high impact conventional technology power sources and high voltage power lines); Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change, PMO and Niti Aayog  (forests, rivers, wildlife and climate change); Department of Atomic Energy, Atomic Energy Commission, PMO,  NITI Aayog, and Comptroller & Auditor General of India (risks, threats, and costs of nuclear power); Ministry of Coal (coal mining risks/ costs), and Ministry of Finance (ecological costs, and high GDP growth rate consequences).

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*Power & Climate Policy Analyst, Karnataka. This article is based on the author's representation to the Chief Justice and justices of Supreme Court of India