Climate change: Bar body to work on legal strategy

Terming Climate Change as a “threat to rule of law”, an all-India conference appealed to all countries to end the great North-South Divide in this regard that threatened the sustainability of both, reports Satya Prakash.

Terming Climate Change as a “threat to rule of law”, an all-India conference of lawyers and environmentalists on Saturday appealed to all countries to end the great North-South Divide in this regard that threatened the sustainability of both.

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The two-day conference on “Climate Change and The Role of Law” called upon national, regional and local governments to make stringent laws and regulations to reduce carbon emissions, increase energy efficiency of motor vehicles and enforce these strictly to avert a global climate disaster. “The current legal systems do not properly take into account the complexities and the consequences of global warming,” it noted.

At the end of the first such conference organised by the Bar Association of India, hundreds of lawyers and environmentalists pledged to work for a global legal framework to meet the challenges arising out of the phenomenon of global warming and climate change.

The delegates adopted “Delhi Declaration on Climate Change and the Role of Law” calling upon “everyone to adopt a new ethic, as well as a change in life-style, attitude and behaviour that recognizes inter-dependence of all life”.

In his inaugural address, former CJI JS Verma said effects of global warming must also be viewed in terms of peace and security. Citing the example of the UK, where a new law on climate change has been introduced, Bar Association of India president Fali S Nariman asked: “Why can’t we be the second country... to establish such a legal framework?”