PUCL Editorial: World Environment Day 2025: Reflections from staring at a post-apocalyptic picture of destruction
By PUCL Bulletin Editorial Board
As this issue goes to print, 14,000 Palestinian children are feared to be on the brink of death by starvation as per the latest warning issued by the United Nations humanitarian chief. The horrors of almost 20 months of internationally acknowledged genocide is staring back at us. It has numbed and desensitized our screens to the live destruction of a thriving civilisation and the forced displacement and brutal killings of its indigenous peoples. The images of Gaza reduced to a mountain of rubble, is a doomsday picture of what destructive actions by authoritarian powers mean for the future of our world. Its unimpeded continuance to this date, has bust the myth that a moral compass even exists in the international community or world order that can stop destruction of this magnitude.
What is happening in Palestine does not feel so distant when we examine the trends of destruction and displacement that threaten indigenous lands, culture and existence in other parts of the globe. Going hand in hand is the destruction of the environment and plunder of natural resources, which the indigenous people have been custodians of, to further corporate exploitation through a destructive developmental agenda.
While the boardroom conversations on climate change continue on global platforms, what awaits outside air-conditioned halls is a world in serious peril. We in India are literally facing the heat. As we speak, the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) has reported in its study that 57% of Indian districts, home to 76% Indians, are currently at ‘high’ to ‘very high’ risk due to extreme heat conditions. The shifts in weather systems due to the increasing temperatures is leading to a dangerous rise in disasters, and India is at the epicenter. India ranks as the 6th most severely affected country by extreme weather events from 1993 to 2022 on the Climate Risk Index 2025. The Himalayan region has witnessed multiple disasters, with earthquakes, landslides, glacial floods, and heavy rainfall events leading to large-scale loss of property, lives and livelihoods. States like Odisha are frequent victims to cyclones leading to mass displacements. Meanwhile, several Indian states face large-scale devastation due to seasonal floods. As per a 2024 report released by CEEW, between 2012-2022, India witnessed increasingly erratic rainfall, with rise in rainfall in 55 per cent tehsils.
Global warming, the phenomenon of enhanced greenhouse effect, is attributed to uncontrolled greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These GHG emissions are a result of destructive developmental activities such as indiscriminate use of fossil fuels, construction, manufacturing, extractive activities and unsustainable development, along with the environmental destruction on account of deforestation, pollution, and waste generation. While our country faces a disproportionate impact of global warming, its fossil-fuel based carbon emissions were 3rd highest in the world in 2023 only after the USA and China. Instead of slowing down on coal production to reduce emissions, India’s coal production is on a rise with a record highest of 1047 MT in the fiscal year 2024-2025, marking a 4.99% growth since the previous year. Mining law reforms have aided this push for coal and facilitated private mining. Rampant deforestation for developmental activities, is leading to a loss in forest cover and contributing to increasing carbon emissions.
As a matter of policy
The protective laws governing the environment, forest and natural resources have been systematically dismantled to facilitate developmental activities and “ease of doing business”. This has allowed for ease in forest diversion, exploitation of natural resources and construction permits for ill-planned and high-impact projects. The policy, legal and institutional processes that were put in place after long struggles waged by the environmental, land and indigenous defenders and movements, to protect the right to land, environment and natural resources, have faced severe dilutions, making enforcement of rights difficult by regularising wrongs. When the law itself is changed, it severely impacts the affected communities rights to access remedy for violations.
Important laws governing grant of clearances to projects have been considerably weakened, such as the Environment Impact Assessment Notification (EIA), 2006 which has been ripped apart by 100+ amendments, the Coastal Regulation Zone Notification that underwent a overhaul in 2019, the recent amendments to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, and several others. This has led to a loss of valuable rights and protections which were incorporated in these laws. By changing the thresholds and exempting environmental impact assessment of projects before granting environmental clearance, it is now possible for certain projects to proceed, where it would have been otherwise illegal to do so without following the rigorous EIA process to obtain prior clearance.
The individual and community rights of Adivasi communities that have historically protected and inhabited ecologically fragile and biodiversity rich forest areas are being denied through blatant violation of and dilutions to the Forest Rights Act, 2006 and Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. Public consultation and mandatory processes to ensure free prior informed consent (FPIC) of the indigenous and affected communities, are often bypassed, for projects concerning infrastructure development, power etc. When conducted, they are often rendered an empty formality. Simultaneous struggles are ongoing in assertion of adivasi rights, to protect the forests and natural resources from destruction in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand and other parts of the country.
Environmental laws have also been easy to maneuver and change since much of the substantive law is in the form of notifications, and hence parliamentary process of debate and review can be evaded. While at times formal objections are called for from the public, it is often an empty formality with the notifications being passed without suggested changes and without adopting a consultative approach. Even otherwise, the political will and understanding to oppose the laws seriously, when they enter the parliamentary system, appears to be abysmal. A case in point is the Disaster Management Act, 2005, which recently suffered major amendments. In spite of civil society representations addressed to the parliamentarians to send the bill for review due to its devastating consequences, the same were ignored. At a time of increasing precarity and disaster risk, the removal of vital provisions like the ones relating to loan relief and compensation, which alleviate the losses suffered by the people, is a major blow to the rights of the affected community. Meanwhile, as the current model of development paves way for more disaster, disaster also destroys development, necessitating a deep rethink into the planning and development policy.
The existing laws also suffer from serious non-implementation. The loosening of regulatory control and lack of monitoring and compliance, lends a freehand to the businesses and project proponents to flout laws. From rampant air pollution, discharge of effluents in rivers and water bodies, disposal of untreated industrial waste, reports of violations are frequent, inspite of protections provided under law and progressive judgments of the courts. Meanwhile, the legal fight for accountability in case of violations is an uphill task, with information becoming more inaccessible and court delays often impacting the struggle for justice.
The shift to green energy is also taking place with the same business-oriented and flawed approach, with a focus on mega projects that are land intensive and unsustainable. These projects, which have the support of international finance institutions (IFIs), are being planned in environmentally fragile and scheduled areas, in disregard of the constitutional protections and the environmental impact. Ostensibly in the name of “just” transition, “green” grabbing of huge tracts of land is underway. Meanwhile, by categorising them as clean energy, projects like Solar Parks are exempt from the EIA process, and hence there is no scrutiny on the devastating impact of such projects.
While legal remedies to uphold the right to life and protect the environment are becoming more inaccessible, law is instead being increasingly weaponised against indigenous and land rights defenders who are on the frontline to protect the environment and their rights.
This issue of the bulletin will take us through poignant accounts of cases from across the country that provide insight on what is underway in the name of development. Yet, it is only a needle in the haystack.
Finally, in the midst of the ferment going on in the country, with the high level of mistrust and enmity created on account of the impunity granted to communal hate and intolerance, we cannot ignore the widening gaps between socially marginalized communities that are threatening collective action necessary to protect their rights. This vitriol is clouding the landscape, making every other legitimate concern secondary and adversely affecting the struggle to uphold economic, social and cultural rights, and to protect the environment.
In the current framework, the collective fight to conserve the environment and uphold human rights will have to necessarily prioritise the assertion and protection of civil liberties.