THE FUSE

Climate change is not only an environmental problem; it is deeply engraved in social systems, privileges, and injustices, affecting people of different class, race, gender, geography, and generation unequally. As Farhana Sultana, an associate professor of geography at Syracuse University who teaches climate justice, aptly puts it: “You cannot keep having your luxury emissions, and then point fingers at the person who's having emissions just to survive.”

Climate justice requires that climate action remains consistent with existing human rights agreements, obligations, standards, and principles. At its core is the recognition that those who have contributed the least to climate change unjustly and disproportionately suffer its harm. This injustice is heavily embedded in historical unfairness. While it is clear that global emissions need to be cut—bringing together the world’s most powerful politicians—we must ask ourselves: Does everyone have the luxury of time to point fingers and talk about the “just” distribution of action? Millions of people are displaced and die annually from climate-linked factors; the victims are mainly marginalized communities who lack the resources to adapt. It is a vicious cycle of exploitation.

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In the Paris Agreement, signatories agreed to ‘respect, promote and consider their respective obligations on human rights’ when addressing climate change, especially regarding marginalized groups. However, the current reality tells a different story. The United States, which consistently ranks in the top three greenhouse gas emitters and holds the largest cumulative emissions since the Industrial Revolution, is set to exit the Paris Agreement on January 27th, 2026. This withdrawal reinforces inequity and raises urgent questions about responsibility. Because the atmosphere is a shared space, any effort taken by individual countries benefits all, while major contributors continue to prioritize economic growth. Where do we truly draw the line? How long can the wealthy feed the masses fairytales of eternal economic growth while we witness mass extinction firsthand?

Similarly, India ranks among the top three greenhouse gas emitters and envisions an ambitious “Viksit Bharat” mission to become a developed nation by its 100th year of independence. To foster this, India has made climate commitments, such as achieving net-zero by 2070 and hitting 2030 targets like increasing non-fossil fuel capacity to 500GW. Yet, the daily reality is contradictory. During the peak festive season, the Supreme Court permitted the sale of green firecrackers in Delhi NCR, an area infamous for degraded air quality. While green crackers reduce pollution by only 30-35%, and despite time limits on their use, the AQI hit a hazardous 999. Disturbingly, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta commented that “AQI is a temperature, can be measured with any instrument.” To solve the problem, we must first recognize it; air pollution contributes to approximately 1.67 million deaths annually in India, accounting for 17% of all nationwide deaths according to the State of Global Air 2023.

Another instance of prioritizing growth over ecology is the federal government’s changing definition of "hills." The Court held that only landforms rising at least 100 metres above local relief qualify as Aravalli Hills. The Forest Survey of India reported that of 12,081 hills mapped, only 1,048 (8.7%) meet this criterion. Allowing industrial mining in these reclassified areas poses imminent, irreversible ecological damage. Can the centre change the definition of a billion-year-old hill overnight just to permit industrial exploitation?

This trend continues with the “Great Nicobar” project in a highly earthquake-vulnerable zone. The project aspires to raze 130 sq km of rainforest—over a million trees—to build a transhipment port, airport, and power plant, threatening a unique biosphere and indigenous tribes. As researcher Pankaj Sekhsaria, who has worked on the islands for three decades, notes: “On a larger scale, it is also the law that is manipulated, bypassed, that feels like a betrayal... Suddenly one day a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) 1A land is turned into CRZ 1B land, to allow for the port to come up. Then what is the purpose of these laws?” Time and time again, governments betray the trust of local people and reinforce socio-economic inequalities, while speaking only of innovation and development.