Madras High Court Calls For Centre's Response On Plea Seeking Mandatory Climate Change Assessment Before Granting Clearance To Industrial Projects

Calling the plea one for a just cause, the bench of Acting Chief Justice R Mahadevan and Justice Mohammed Shaffiq asked the Centre to respond to it in two weeks.

The petition has been filed by G Sudarrajan of Poovulagin Nanbargal, an environmental organisation. The petitioner submitted that as per the EIA notification issued by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in 2006, large-scale construction projects could be undertaken only after obtaining prior environment clearance from the Centre or State EIA Authority. However, he pointed out that the notification does not talk about climate change or studying the impact of climate change while preparing the EIA report though it is a major environmental concern.

He added that recently, the Supreme Court had observed that every person had a right to be freed from theadverse effects of climate change based on Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution. He added that the current method of preparing the Environment Impact Assessment Report was contrary to Article 21 of the Constitution as it did not insist on studying the impact of climate change.

The petitioner added that while studying the environmental impact of a project, it was necessary to look into the impact on climate due to the construction and operation, especially emission of carbon and other greenhouse gases, rise in sea level, sea erosion and rise in temperature. He thus pointed out that it was necessary to make a study on climate change while obtaining the environmental clearance for a project.

Thus, it was pointed out that given the rising concerns over climate change and the recent ruling of the Supreme Court where the Apex Court had highlighted the right to a clean environment, it was necessary to make climate change an essential part of the EIA report.

Case Title: G Sundarrajan v Union of India