Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Saturday said that adjudication of climate disputes by courts should examine the cumulative harm caused to the environment rather than limit its scope to the isolated environmental injury caused by a project.
A forest does not understand the distinction between one project from another. The atmosphere does not recognise national frontiers. Climate adjudication must therefore look beyond the immediate proposal and examine the larger ecological system of which that project forms a part.
Stating the challenges that lie ahead for courts in the field of climate disputes, the CJI said, “A river does not experience pollution according to administrative boundaries. Globally too, justice Kant said that courts across developed and developing countries have endeavoured to highlight that the “environment is not an inert backdrop to human ambition, but a living, breathing protagonist in the story of our shared well-being.”
Speaking at the two-day National Green Tribunal International Conference, the CJI said that aspects of the environment cannot be limited to geographical spaces as the impact on the environment in one place has a cumulative impact on climate.
