Climate Risks in an Unequal Society: The Question of Climate Justice in India

Title

Climate Risks in an Unequal Society: The Question of Climate Justice in India

Creator

Madhanagopal D.; Jacob V.A.

Description

Over the past few decades, India has witnessed the brunt of climate change impacts in multiple dimensions. Notably, recent years' experiences prove that there has been a substantial increase in the intensity, frequency, and duration of climate-related risks and extreme events, resulting in an acceleration of the nexus between climate change and inequities. Despite the growing advancements of socioeconomic research on current and future climate change risks in India, the explorations through the lens of legal perspectives are still limited and have not met the demands. This chapter argues for rethinking legal perspectives of climate justice in India by drawing insights from two recent climate extreme events. To begin with, this chapter briefly reviews the historical background of the global actions to combat climate inequities and injustices and identifies the ways in which climate injustices perpetuate. For this, it adopts three main principles of climate justice, consisting of equity, a rights-based approach, and sustainability. Following this, it discusses India's climate policy and the existing institutional framework and actions to respond to climate change at the national and state levels. Then, by focusing on the climate change impacts on India, it introduces two recent climate-related risk events in India, and it discusses the unequal structuration of climate risks and the resulting more vulnerable and precarious situation of the marginal sections of the society that already faces multiple social injustices of Indian society. At the end of the cases, it briefly offers a critique of the climate change action plans of the respective states. This chapter concludes by outlining a few strategies to create a more sustainable and equitable approach toward climate governance and justice by strengthening the legal and institutional dispensations of the climate regime in India. The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2022.

Source

Environment, Climate, and Social Justice: Perspectives and Practices from the Global South, pp. 161-188.

Date

2022-01-01

Publisher

Springer Nature

Subject

Climate justice; Climate risks; India's climate policy; Kerala and Odisha; Social inequities

Coverage

Madhanagopal D., School of Sustainability, XIM University, Odisha, India; Jacob V.A., School of Law, Christ University, Karnataka, Bangalore, India

Rights

Restricted Access

Relation

ISBN: 978-981191986-2; 978-981191987-9

Format

Online

Language

English

Type

Book chapter

Identifier

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-1987-9_9

https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85162662857&doi=10.1007%2f978-981-19-1987-9_9&partnerID=40&md5=22a89b68617193680fda99bace6a938e