From Aspiration to Enforceable Obligation: Constitutionalising Climate Action and the Sustainable Development Goals in India

From Aspiration to Enforceable Obligation: Constitutionalising Climate Action and the Sustainable Development Goals in India

Introduction

India's decisive response has come primarily on the policy front. The country localises the SDGs through NITI Aayog that comes up with an SDG Index India, monthly, to rank the States and UTs on the basis of 113 parameters aligned with the national indicator framework. A composite national score progressively climbed from 57 in 2018 to 66 in 2020–21 and 71 in 2023–24 while NITI Aayog speaks of very significant progress in the three areas of poverty reduction, economic growth and climate action in the last period. At the same time, India announced at the Glasgow climate conference in 2021 a package of five commitments which, inter alia, include 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, generating a minimum of half of energy needs from renewables, slashing projected emissions by one billion tonnes, decreasing the emissions intensity of GDP by 45 per cent from 2005 levels, and becoming net-zero only by 2070. The 2022 updated version of the NDC made the intensity and non-fossil capacity targets official and India also submitted its long-term low-emission development strategy at the end of 2022 (MoEFCC, 2022a; MoEFCC, 2022b).

Results have been most apparent in the power sector. The government declared that, as of 30 June 2025, non-fossil sources accounted for about half of the installed electricity capacity, thus reaching the NDC target five years ahead of schedule (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, 2025). PM-KUSUM and PM Surya Ghar are great examples of how renewable energy has been tied to farm incomes and household energy access. These results highlight that climate action and development are capable of being very much in harmony and it is that issue of legal accountability that they do not answer, since installed capacity is an input variable that can easily be turned around by changing policies.

The conformity and authority of identified laws, rules and regulations with the respective constitutions of the states, their codifications, and the local and international jurisprudence shall constitute the broader context for the evolution of theory and practice in the development of an enforceable climate law. Given the continuing evolution and comparatively limited maturity of the area of research and practice concerning climate change and associated issues, the sequence of activities indicated in the Figure above is best considered a statement of ongoing work by the researcher rather than a roadmap that implies clear chronological segmentation of the research.

Source: author's analysis.

6. Comparative and International Insights

6.1 Framework legislation: the United Kingdom and South Africa

The UK's Climate Change Act 2008 is still the baseline for framework climate legislation. It has laid down a law-based target that is very long-term and legally binding - net zero by 2050, has put the onus on the government to keep issuing carbon budgets every five years, mandates annual reports to the Parliament and has created an independent Climate Change Committee whose advice and progress reports the government is bound to respond to. This Act's structure is a great example of how a legal act can put a check on the executive without deciding which policy tools should be used by the government. South Africa, which is a developing country and heavily relying on coal, brought out its Climate Change Act in 2024 and in doing so, has established a legislative framework for the sectoral emissions targets, carbon budgets and adaptation planning, as well as a coordinating institutional structure. The South African case is especially helpful to the Indian scenario as it demonstrates that framework ii legislation is not just a privilege of rich countries.

6.2 Courts and intertemporal fairness: Germany, the Netherlands, Pakistan and Strasbourg

Judiciaries have come forward as catalysts for change. In Neubauer v. Germany (Federal Constitutional Court, 24 March 2021), the court decided that the emissions provisions of the Federal Climate Change Act were in conflict with fundamental rights, as the act allows emissions reduction to be deferred until after 2030, thereby placing an excessive burden on future generations. The court instructed the legislature to define emissions reduction avenues beyond 2030.

More than a year earlier, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands had already made a landmark decision revisiting the extent to which the State is legally obligated with respect to protecting individuals from the effects of climate change, wherein it held that the State’s duty to protect the right to life and the right to private life under the European Convention on Human Rights requires it to take the necessary measures to reduce emissions to a level that is consistent with its fair share of the global effort (State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation, Supreme Court, 20 December 2019).

In Asghar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan (Lahore High Court, 2015), a developing country court ruled that postponing climate policy would be a violation of basic rights. The court also set up a commission to oversee the implementation. In Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland (European Court of Human Rights, Grand Chamber, 9 April 2024), the court ruled that insufficient climate measures at the national level could violate the Convention and highlighted that a regulatory framework with specific targets and procedural safeguards is very important.

6.3 The international advisory opinions

At the international level, two advisory opinions have in some way or other made it easier to understand the responsibilities of the States. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in its advisory opinion of 21 May 2024, found that States are specifically obligated to prohibit, prevent and mitigate pollution from greenhouse gas emissions impacting the marine environment. The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion of 23 July 2025 on the obligations of States in respect of climate change, has spelled out that States have obligations under climate treaties, customary international law and human rights law. It has also reasoned that States are not completely free to set their NDCs - the due diligence standard that they need to follow is quite demanding. These opinions, as contentious matters, are not binding on India but they do influence the interpretative environment where Indian courts and Indian lawmakers assess the adequacy of national climate action.

6.4 Lessons for India

1. Make the climate change commitment legally binding - enact laws that make net-zero targets and periodic emissions budgets mandatory rather than relying on executive pledges. This not only provides predictability to investors but also helps hold the government accountable.

2. The key to keeping expertise separate from politics is to set up a highly independent expert body. This will not only enable the experts to build rapport with the public but it also creates a bench mark which will benefit the courts since the establishment of the facts avoids a situation where the courts have to make policy.

3. The rulings in Neubauer are an admonition not to keep postponing the punishment of the later generations for the actions of the earlier generations. This point has a very close connection with the inter-generational equity principle recognized by the Indian judiciary.

4. India's climate law should be tailored to its level of responsibility. This means that India should base its law on a fair-share standard in light of its developmental needs and low historical emissions to the exclusion of absolute-cut targets of industrialized States.

7. A Climate–SDG Accountability Framework for India

This chapter, based on the analysis above, puts forward a Climate–SDG Accountability Framework made up of five pillars that support each other. The framework has been conceptualized with the aim of being implemented by a single Law of Parliament, to be called the Climate Change and Sustainable Development Act, authorized by Article 253 and Entry 14 of the Union List, and also substantiated by the directive principle in Article 48A.

Pillar 1: Statutory anchoring of the national pathway

Such an Act should incorporate into law India's net-zero goal over a very long horizon together with its NDC targets as legally binding objectives, and it should also mandate the Union government to formulate medium-term pathway instruments such as emissions-intensity or carbon budgets over a five-year period that are consistent with the NDC cycle. It must allow for an explicit developmental safeguard clause that recognizes the right to development, eradication of poverty, and universal energy access as the principal guiding considerations, and it should incorporate the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities as the normative standard by which a fair national contribution is defined.

Pillar 2: An independent Climate and SDG Commission

There should be a statutory commission of experts who, working independently of the government in their assessments, provide advice on the pathway to follow, conduct progress audits against statutory targets and the SDGs, and produce annual reports to Parliament. Additionally, the government should be obligated to give a formal response to the Commission's recommendations within a predetermined time frame, explaining any deviation. The Commission should have the authority to request data from ministries and States and to issue a consolidated and publicly available climate and SDG dataset that brings together emissions inventories, adaptation expenditure and climate finance.

Pillar 3: Cooperative federalism and subnational delivery

Each State and Union Territory must be legislatively mandated to draft a State Climate and SDG Plan including baselines, priorities and monitoring frameworks. The Act should provide for fiscal transfers linked to performance, possibly taking inspiration from the Finance Commission process and the creation of central financing windows. Because local bodies in urban and rural areas have environmental functions under the Constitution, they should be provided with adequate resources and training to carry out adaptation measures such as heat action plans, water conservation and nature-based solutions.

Pillar 4: Procedural rights, remedies and judicial review

The Bill needs to make the procedural environmental rights explicit: the right to information, the right to meaningful participation and the right to reasoned decision-making. It should mandate a climate impact assessment, including greenhouse gas accounting and climate vulnerability screening, not only for major projects but also for significant policies and legislation. The National Green Tribunal should be specifically authorized to entertain climate-related claims which it should deal with in accordance with the principles in section 20 of the Act. Judicial scrutiny should emphasize procedural regularity, rationality and proportionality, while at the same time ensuring that courts monitor whether the State is fulfilling its legal duties without displacing the executive's choice of instruments.

Pillar 5: Just transition and policy coherence

The Act needs to require that a just transition plan be adopted for the regions and workers that are most vulnerable to decarbonization and that the retraining, social protection and economic diversification be provided with statutory commitments through a dedicated transition fund. To deal with policy incoherence, it should be made a requirement that new legislation, major delegated legislation and national plans in such sectors as energy, mining, forests and industry are accompanied by a statement of compatibility with the NDC and the relevant SDG targets.

Source: author's proposal.

8. Anticipated Objections and Responses

Separation of powers.

2015 was the year when two really important multilateral texts came out that together will define if this century can be one of sustainability. One is the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development that includes 17 goals and 169 targets in total, while the other is the Paris Agreement on climate change. They were negotiated in different forums and as a result, the issues they highlight are intertwined. If we have development that does not consider the climate then it may collapse, but also if climate change measures ignore issues such as poverty, livelihoods and energy access then, in addition, they will not be politically or morally sustainable. For India, a large developing economy that is currently the third largest absolute emitter of GHGs after China and the US but with low per capita emissions and very pressing developmental needs, this is a matter of concern.

India's decisive response has come primarily on the policy front. The country localises the SDGs through NITI Aayog that comes up with an SDG Index India, monthly, to rank the States and UTs on the basis of 113 parameters aligned with the national indicator framework. A composite national score progressively climbed from 57 in 2018 to 66 in 2020–21 and 71 in 2023–24 while NITI Aayog speaks of very significant progress in the three areas of poverty reduction, economic growth and climate action in the last period. At the same time, India announced at the Glasgow climate conference in 2021 a package of five commitments which, inter alia, include 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, generating a minimum of half of energy needs from renewables, slashing projected emissions by one billion tonnes, decreasing the emissions intensity of GDP by 45 per cent from 2005 levels, and becoming net-zero only by 2070. The 2022 updated version of the NDC made the intensity and non-fossil capacity targets official and India also submitted its long-term low-emission development strategy at the end of 2022 (MoEFCC, 2022a; MoEFCC, 2022b).

Results have been most apparent in the power sector. The government declared that, as of 30 June 2025, non-fossil sources accounted for about half of the installed electricity capacity, thus reaching the NDC target five years ahead of schedule (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, 2025). PM-KUSUM and PM Surya Ghar are great examples of how renewable energy has been tied to farm incomes and household energy access. These results highlight that climate action and development are capable of being very much in harmony and it is that issue of legal accountability that they do not answer, since installed capacity is an input variable that can easily be turned around by changing policies.

The conformity and authority of identified laws, rules and regulations with the respective constitutions of the states, their codifications, and the local and international jurisprudence shall constitute the broader context for the evolution of theory and practice in the development of an enforceable climate law. Given the continuing evolution and comparatively limited maturity of the area of research and practice concerning climate change and associated issues, the sequence of activities indicated in the Figure above is best considered a statement of ongoing work by the researcher rather than a roadmap that implies clear chronological segmentation of the research.

2. Conceptual Framework: Goals, Governance and the Problem of Legal Force

2.1 Governing through goals

The 2030 Agenda was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly as a resolution and is expressly voluntary and nationally owned. Scholars describe its approach as governing through goals, a form of global governance that relies on shared aspirations, indicators and peer review instead of binding obligations (Kanie & Biermann, 2017; Biermann, Kanie & Kim, 2017). The approach has genuine strengths: it mobilises diverse actors, permits national adaptation and creates a common language of measurement. Its weakness is equally evident. A goal that no institution is legally bound to pursue depends on political will that fluctuates with electoral cycles, fiscal pressures and competing priorities.

The SDGs are also deeply interlinked. Progress on one goal can reinforce or undermine another, and climate action (SDG 13) sits at the centre of these interactions (Nilsson, Griggs & Visbeck, 2016; Pradhan et al., 2017; Fuso Nerini et al., 2019). Clean energy expansion advances SDG 7 and can support SDG 8, but it can also generate land conflicts and biodiversity losses that implicate SDG 15. A legal framework that treats climate and development as separate silos will therefore misfire. The appropriate legal question is not whether to prioritise climate or growth, but how to embed both within a single accountable structure.

2.2 From the Paris Agreement to domestic law

The Paris Agreement obliges each Party to prepare, communicate and maintain successive NDCs and to pursue domestic mitigation measures with the aim of achieving them, while leaving the content of the NDC nationally determined and requiring progression over time (Paris Agreement, 2015, arts. 4(2) and 4(3)). The obligations are largely of conduct rather than result, and they are differentiated in light of national circumstances (Rajamani, 2016; Bodansky, Brunnée & Rajamani, 2017). It follows that the real locus of enforceability is domestic. International law identifies the duty to act with due diligence and to pursue ambition; only national law can specify who must do what, by when, and subject to which remedies.

The general principles of environmental law supply the normative vocabulary for that translation. Sustainable development, articulated in the Brundtland Report and the Rio Declaration, integrates environmental protection into development and demands intergenerational equity (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987; Rio Declaration, 1992). The precautionary principle and the polluter-pays principle guide decision-making under uncertainty and allocate the costs of harm, and common but differentiated responsibilities recognise the divergent historical contributions and capacities of States (Sands, Peel, Fabra & MacKenzie, 2018). These principles have been absorbed into Indian law and provide the bridge between global goals and domestic obligations.

2.3 A three-tier typology of legal force

For analytical clarity, this chapter distinguishes three tiers at which a climate or SDG commitment may sit within a domestic legal order. At the first tier, the commitment is an aspirational policy, announced by the executive and implemented through programmes, with no legal consequence for failure. At the second tier, it is a statutory duty, specifying obligations on identified bodies, with reporting requirements and, ideally, oversight. At the third tier, it is a constitutional right or duty, which informs the interpretation of all law and can be enforced through judicial review. A robust climate–SDG regime requires all three tiers to work together. India presently has a strong third tier at the level of judicial principle, a thin second tier, and a heavily populated first tier.

3. India's Climate–Development Architecture

3.1 Policy commitments

India localised the 2030 Agenda through NITI Aayog, which publishes the SDG India Index to rank States and Union Territories on the basis of 113 indicators aligned with the national indicator framework. The composite national score rose from 57 in 2018 to 66 in 2020–21 and 71 in 2023–24, and NITI Aayog reports notable gains in poverty reduction, economic growth and climate action over the latest interval (NITI Aayog, 2024). Alongside this, India announced at the Glasgow climate conference in 2021 a five-part set of commitments, including 500 GW of non-fossil electricity capacity by 2030, meeting half of energy requirements from renewables, reducing projected emissions by one billion tonnes, cutting the emissions intensity of GDP by 45 per cent from 2005 levels, and achieving net zero by 2070. The 2022 update to the NDC formalised the intensity and non-fossil capacity targets, and India submitted its long-term low-emission development strategy at the end of 2022 (MoEFCC, 2022a; MoEFCC, 2022b).

Implementation has been notable in the power sector. The government reported that, as of 30 June 2025, non-fossil sources accounted for roughly half of installed electricity capacity, meeting the NDC threshold five years early (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, 2025). Flagship schemes such as PM-KUSUM and PM Surya Ghar have tied renewable energy to farm incomes and household energy access. These achievements illustrate that climate action and development can be mutually reinforcing, but they do not answer the question of legal accountability, since installed capacity is an input indicator that can be reversed by policy change.

3.2 Legal and institutional instruments

The statutory landscape comprises the Environment (Protection) Act 1986, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act 1981, the Energy Conservation Act 2001 (as amended in 2022 to enable a carbon market), the National Green Tribunal Act 2010, and sectoral laws on forests and biodiversity. The Carbon Credit Trading Scheme, notified in 2023 under the Energy Conservation Act, is the most direct statutory instrument for emissions pricing. The National Action Plan on Climate Change, adopted in 2008, organises eight national missions, and States have prepared their own action plans. Table 1 summarises the principal instruments and their legal force.

Table 1. Principal climate–SDG instruments in India and their legal force

Source: compiled by the author from the instruments cited.

The pattern that emerges is consistent. Commitments are announced at the level of executive policy, and enforceable law addresses discrete sectors or pollutants. The bridge between the two, a statute that binds the State to a pathway and subjects delivery to oversight, is missing.

4. Constitutional and Judicial Foundations

4.1 Textual anchors

The Constitution, as amended by the Forty-second Amendment in 1976, directs the State to protect and improve the environment and safeguard forests and wildlife (Article 48A) and imposes on every citizen the fundamental duty to protect and improve the natural environment (Article 51A(g)). These provisions are not directly enforceable as rights, but the Supreme Court has read directive principles and fundamental duties into the interpretation of fundamental rights and into the reasonableness of State action. Article 253 empowers Parliament to legislate for the whole or any part of India to implement international agreements, and Entry 14 of the Union List covers the implementation of treaties. Together they furnish a secure legislative basis for a national climate statute even where subject matter would otherwise fall within State competence.

4.2 The environmental jurisprudence of Article 21

Indian courts have long treated a healthy environment as integral to the right to life under Article 21. In Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar (1991) 1 SCC 598, the Supreme Court held that the right to life includes the right to enjoy pollution-free water and air. In M.C. Mehta v. Union of India (1987) 1 SCC 395, the Court articulated the doctrine of absolute liability for hazardous industries. In Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum v. Union of India (1996) 5 SCC 647, it held the precautionary principle, the polluter-pays principle and sustainable development to be part of the environmental law of the land, a position later reflected in section 20 of the National Green Tribunal Act 2010. In M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath (1997) 1 SCC 388, the Court applied the public trust doctrine to natural resources. In Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan (1997) 6 SCC 241, the Court accepted that international norms consistent with fundamental rights may be read into domestic law in the absence of contrary legislation, which provides a doctrinal route for treaty commitments such as the Paris Agreement to inform the content of Article 21.

4.3 Recognising a right against the adverse effects of climate change

The decisive recent development is M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 838 of 2019, decided 21 March 2024). The case arose from efforts to protect the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard from collisions with overhead power lines in the habitats where renewable energy infrastructure is concentrated. In the course of its reasoning, the Supreme Court recognised a right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change as a facet of the rights to life and equality under Articles 21 and 14, and it acknowledged the need to reconcile India's clean-energy transition with the protection of biodiversity.

The significance of this recognition is twofold. First, it removes doubt about the constitutional pedigree of climate claims: a litigant need not frame a climate grievance as a proxy for local pollution. Second, it places the renewable energy transition itself within constitutional scrutiny, since a policy that is climate-positive at the national level may still violate ecological or livelihood rights at the local level. The decision thus illustrates the integrated logic of the SDGs, in which SDG 7, SDG 13 and SDG 15 must be pursued together.

Two limitations must nevertheless be stated. The first is remedial: the Court recognised a right but, given the facts before it, did not fix a standard against which the adequacy of India's mitigation or adaptation measures could be tested. The second is institutional: courts are poorly placed to design emissions pathways, allocate carbon budgets or evaluate economy-wide transition strategies. A recognised right without a statutory framework risks becoming episodic, dependent on the accidents of litigation. This is precisely the gap that legislation must fill.

5. The Implementation Gap: Five Diagnoses

5.1 No framework climate statute

India has no umbrella legislation that states long-term climate objectives, mandates interim targets and prescribes institutional duties. The NDC is an executive communication to the UNFCCC. Parliament is neither required to approve it nor to receive periodic reports on its delivery. Consequently, the principal constraint on policy reversal is political reputation, not law.

5.2 Legislative fragmentation and policy incoherence

Climate-relevant regulation is distributed across pollution statutes, energy laws, forest and wildlife laws and sectoral regulations that were not designed with climate objectives in mind. This fragmentation can produce internal inconsistency. The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act 2023, which renamed the 1980 Act, narrowed the categories of land to which forest-clearance requirements apply and attracted litigation, and the Supreme Court issued interim directions in 2024 preserving the broader understanding of forests articulated in T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India (1997) 2 SCC 267 pending adjudication. The controversy matters for climate policy because India's NDC includes a commitment to create an additional carbon sink through forest and tree cover. Weakening the legal protection of forests while promising additional sinks illustrates the need for a statutory coherence requirement.

5.3 Federal and subnational accountability

Environmental competence in India is distributed across the Union, State and local levels. There is no single legislative head for the environment. Forests and the protection of wild animals and birds are in the Concurrent List, whereas water, public health and land fall within the State List, and the Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules assign environmental functions to local bodies. Climate delivery, whether in urban heat management, coastal resilience, agricultural adaptation or the phase-out of coal-based livelihoods, is therefore inherently subnational. Although States have prepared action plans, these lack uniform statutory footing, dedicated fiscal windows and standardised monitoring, so that the burden of implementation falls on units with the least capacity.

5.4 Absence of independent oversight and open data

The SDG India Index is compiled by a government think tank and, while methodologically valuable, functions as institutional self-assessment. There is no independent statutory body with a mandate to evaluate whether the country is on track for its climate commitments, to publish findings and to require a formal government response. Emissions inventories, adaptation spending and climate finance flows are not consolidated in a form that permits parliamentary or public scrutiny.

5.5 Neglected justice and transition dimensions

Climate policy affects different communities unequally. Coal-dependent districts, informal workers, small farmers and coastal communities carry disproportionate transition and adaptation risks. Existing instruments contain few enforceable guarantees of retraining, income support or fiscal transfers for affected regions. Without such guarantees, the political economy of the transition will generate resistance and weaken the social foundation on which SDG 1, SDG 8 and SDG 10 depend.

Table 2. Diagnosis of the implementation gap

Source: author's analysis.

6. Comparative and International Insights

6.1 Framework legislation: the United Kingdom and South Africa

The United Kingdom's Climate Change Act 2008 remains the archetype of framework climate legislation. It sets a legally binding long-term target, now net zero by 2050, requires the government to adopt successive five-year carbon budgets, obliges annual reporting, and establishes an independent Climate Change Committee whose advice and progress reports the government must answer. The Act's design shows how a statute can discipline the executive without prescribing policy instruments. South Africa, a developing and coal-dependent economy, enacted its Climate Change Act in 2024, creating a legislative framework for sectoral emissions targets, carbon budgets and adaptation planning, and a coordinating institutional structure. The South African example is particularly instructive for India because it shows that framework legislation is not an exclusive preserve of high-income States.

6.2 Courts and intertemporal fairness: Germany, the Netherlands, Pakistan and Strasbourg

Courts have played a catalytic role. In Neubauer v. Germany (Federal Constitutional Court, 24 March 2021), the court held that provisions of the Federal Climate Change Act were incompatible with fundamental rights because they deferred emissions reductions to the post-2030 period, thereby imposing disproportionate burdens on future generations, and it required the legislature to specify reduction pathways beyond 2030. In State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation (Supreme Court, 20 December 2019), the court held that the State's duty to protect life and private life under the European Convention on Human Rights required emissions reductions consistent with the State's own fair share. In Asghar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan (Lahore High Court, 2015), a Global South court held that delay in implementing climate policy violated fundamental rights and established a commission to monitor implementation. In Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz v. Switzerland (European Court of Human Rights, Grand Chamber, 9 April 2024), the court held that inadequate domestic climate action can breach the Convention, and emphasised the importance of a regulatory framework with concrete targets and procedural safeguards.

6.3 The international advisory opinions

Two international advisory opinions have clarified the legal landscape. The International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, in its advisory opinion of 21 May 2024, held that States have specific obligations to prevent, reduce and control marine pollution arising from greenhouse gas emissions. The International Court of Justice, in its advisory opinion of 23 July 2025 on the obligations of States in respect of climate change, confirmed that States are bound by obligations under the climate treaties, customary international law and human rights law, and reasoned that the discretion accorded to States in framing their NDCs is constrained by a demanding standard of due diligence. These opinions are not binding on India as a contentious matter, but they shape the interpretive environment in which Indian courts, and Indian legislators, will assess the adequacy of national climate action.

6.4 Lessons for India

• Legislate the pathway: statutory targets and periodic budgets, rather than executive pledges, create predictability for investors and accountability for governments.

• Separate expertise from politics: an independent expert body strengthens credibility and gives courts a benchmark that avoids judicial policy-making.

• Build in intertemporal fairness: the Neubauer logic warns against backloading burdens onto later generations, a concern that resonates with India's own doctrine of intergenerational equity.

• Calibrate to differentiated responsibility: India's law should reflect a fair-share standard grounded in its developmental needs and low historical emissions, not replicate the absolute-cut targets of industrialised States.

7. A Climate–SDG Accountability Framework for India

Drawing on the preceding analysis, this chapter proposes a Climate–SDG Accountability Framework comprising five mutually reinforcing pillars. The framework is designed to be enacted through a single Parliamentary statute, which may be styled the Climate Change and Sustainable Development Act, supported by Article 253 and Entry 14 of the Union List, and by the directive principle in Article 48A.

Pillar 1: Statutory anchoring of the national pathway

The Act should enshrine India's long-term net-zero objective and its NDC targets as statutory goals, and require the Union government to adopt medium-term pathway instruments, for example five-year emissions-intensity or carbon budgets aligned with the NDC cycle. It should include an express developmental safeguard clause recognising the right to development, eradication of poverty and universal energy access as guiding considerations, and it should embed the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities as the interpretive standard for what constitutes a fair national contribution.

Pillar 2: An independent Climate and SDG Commission

A statutory expert body, insulated from executive direction in its assessments, should be tasked with advising on pathways, auditing progress against statutory targets and the SDGs, and publishing annual reports to Parliament. The government should be required to respond formally to the Commission's recommendations within a fixed period, explaining any departure. The Commission should be empowered to demand data from ministries and States, and to publish a consolidated open climate and SDG dataset that integrates emissions inventories, adaptation expenditure and climate finance.

Pillar 3: Cooperative federalism and subnational delivery

The statute should require each State and Union Territory to adopt a State Climate and SDG Plan with baselines, priorities and monitoring frameworks, and provide for performance-linked fiscal transfers, drawing on the Finance Commission process and dedicated central financing windows. Urban and rural local bodies, which are constitutionally mandated to perform environmental functions, should be resourced and trained to implement adaptation measures such as heat action plans, water conservation and nature-based solutions.

Pillar 4: Procedural rights, remedies and judicial review

The Act should codify procedural environmental rights: access to information, meaningful public participation and reasoned decision-making. It should require a climate impact assessment, including greenhouse gas accounting and climate-vulnerability screening, for major projects and for significant policies and legislation. The National Green Tribunal should be expressly empowered to hear climate-related claims, applying the principles in section 20 of its Act. Judicial review should focus on procedural regularity, rationality and proportionality, ensuring that courts supervise whether the State is pursuing its statutory duties without displacing the executive's choice of instruments.

Pillar 5: Just transition and policy coherence

The Act should mandate a just transition plan for regions and workers most exposed to decarbonisation, with statutory commitments to retraining, social protection and economic diversification funded through a dedicated transition fund. To address policy incoherence, it should require that new legislation, major delegated legislation and national plans in sectors such as energy, mining, forests and industry be accompanied by a statement of compatibility with the NDC and relevant SDG targets.

Table 3. Climate–SDG Accountability Framework

Source: author's proposal.

8. Anticipated Objections and Responses

Separation of powers. Critics may argue that statutory climate duties invite judicial overreach into policy. The proposed framework answers this concern by locating substantive choices with the legislature and expert bodies, and by confining judicial review to process, rationality and proportionality. The comparative experience of the United Kingdom, where the Climate Change Act has coexisted with vigorous parliamentary control, suggests that binding frameworks enhance rather than displace democratic decision-making.

Growth trade-offs. It may be said that legal targets will constrain growth. The framework is calibrated to the contrary: it embeds the developmental safeguard, uses intensity-based and fair-share benchmarks and links delivery to fiscal support and technology transfer. The evidence from India's own renewable expansion suggests that low-carbon investment can also create employment, energy security and industrial opportunities, though its distributional consequences require deliberate management. In any event, unmitigated climate impacts impose their own developmental costs, which fall most heavily on the poor.

Federalism. A national statute might be thought to intrude upon State autonomy. Yet Article 253 and the concurrent competence in several relevant fields justify national framework legislation, while the proposed cooperative design leaves States to determine the means of delivery and rewards performance instead of imposing uniform prescriptions.

Litigation risk. Expanded remedies may generate a flood of claims. The framework mitigates this through structured procedures, the specialised jurisdiction of the National Green Tribunal, standing rules that focus on genuine public interest, and an expert Commission whose reports provide a common evidentiary basis and reduce fragmented, repetitive litigation.

9. Conclusion

India has demonstrated that ambitious climate action and development need not be adversaries. Its renewable energy expansion, its localisation of the SDGs and its evolving environmental jurisprudence all point toward a model of development that is both inclusive and low-carbon. Yet this promise remains fragile as long as it rests on political commitments that any government can revise. The transition from aspiration to obligation requires law: a statute that binds the State to a fair and development-sensitive pathway, an independent institution that measures progress honestly, federal machinery that delivers at the local level, procedural rights that empower citizens, and transition guarantees that protect those most exposed to change.

The constitutionalisation of climate action is not a constraint on growth but the condition on which inclusive, resilient growth can be sustained. Rethinking growth in a warming world means recognising that the decisive innovations are institutional and legal. If India can design an accountability architecture that reflects its constitutional values and developmental priorities, it will offer the Global South a model of climate governance that is credible, equitable and enforceable.

Future research should evaluate the fiscal design of performance-linked climate transfers, test comparative models of independent climate bodies in federal systems, and analyse judicial practice as India's courts develop standards of review for the right against the adverse effects of climate change.

References

Agarwal, A., & Narain, S. (1991). Global warming in an unequal world: A case of environmental colonialism. Centre for Science and Environment.

Asghar Leghari v. Federation of Pakistan, W.P. No. 25501/2015 (Lahore High Court Green Bench, 2015).

Biermann, F., Kanie, N., & Kim, R. E. (2017). Global governance by goal-setting: The novel approach of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 26–27, 26–31.

Bodansky, D., Brunnée, J., & Rajamani, L. (2017). International climate change law. Oxford University Press.

Constitution of India, arts. 14, 21, 41, 43, 48A, 51A(g), 253; Seventh Schedule (Union List, Entry 14); Eleventh and Twelfth Schedules.

Energy Conservation Act, 2001 (as amended by the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2022) (India).

Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023 (India).

Fuso Nerini, F., Sovacool, B., Hughes, N., Cozzi, L., Cosgrave, E., Howells, M., … Milligan, B. (2019). Connecting climate action with other Sustainable Development Goals. Nature Sustainability, 2, 674–680.

International Court of Justice. (2025). Obligations of States in respect of climate change (Advisory Opinion of 23 July 2025).

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea. (2024). Request for an advisory opinion submitted by the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law (Case No. 31), Advisory Opinion of 21 May 2024.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2023). Climate change 2023: Synthesis report. IPCC.

Kanie, N., & Biermann, F. (Eds.). (2017). Governing through goals: Sustainable Development Goals as governance innovation. MIT Press.

M.C. Mehta v. Kamal Nath, (1997) 1 SCC 388.

M.C. Mehta v. Union of India, (1987) 1 SCC 395.

M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, Writ Petition (Civil) No. 838 of 2019 (Supreme Court of India, 21 March 2024).

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. (2022a). India's updated first Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement. Government of India (submitted to the UNFCCC).

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change. (2022b). India's long-term low-carbon development strategy. Government of India (submitted to the UNFCCC).

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. (2025, July 14). India achieves 50 per cent non-fossil installed electricity capacity (Press release). Government of India.

National Green Tribunal Act, 2010 (India).

Neubauer et al. v. Germany, Federal Constitutional Court (Bundesverfassungsgericht), Order of 24 March 2021, 1 BvR 2656/18 et al.

NITI Aayog. (2024). SDG India Index 2023–24. Government of India.

Nilsson, M., Griggs, D., & Visbeck, M. (2016). Policy: Map the interactions between Sustainable Development Goals. Nature, 534, 320–322.

Paris Agreement, adopted 12 December 2015, entered into force 4 November 2016, 3156 UNTS 79.

Pradhan, P., Costa, L., Rybski, D., Lucht, W., & Kropp, J. P. (2017). A systematic study of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) interactions. Earth's Future, 5(11), 1169–1179.

Rajamani, L. (2016). Ambition and differentiation in the 2015 Paris Agreement: Interpretative possibilities and underlying politics. International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 65(2), 493–514.

Rio Declaration on Environment and Development. (1992). UN Doc. A/CONF.151/26 (Vol. I).

Sands, P., Peel, J., Fabra, A., & MacKenzie, R. (2018). Principles of international environmental law (4th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

State of the Netherlands v. Urgenda Foundation, Supreme Court of the Netherlands, 20 December 2019.

Subhash Kumar v. State of Bihar, (1991) 1 SCC 598.

T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad v. Union of India, (1997) 2 SCC 267.

United Nations General Assembly. (2015). Transforming our world: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (A/RES/70/1).

Vellore Citizens' Welfare Forum v. Union of India, (1996) 5 SCC 647.

Verein KlimaSeniorinnen Schweiz and Others v. Switzerland, European Court of Human Rights (Grand Chamber), App. No. 53600/20, 9 April 2024.

Vishaka v. State of Rajasthan, (1997) 6 SCC 241.

World Commission on Environment and Development. (1987). Our common future. Oxford University Press.