India needs NITI Aayog-like permanent commission to tackle climate change: Supreme Court judge

New Delhi: Supreme Court judge Justice K V Viswanathan on Friday said climate change is a serious existential threat and called for the establishment of a permanent commission in India, similar to NITI Aayog, to find a comprehensive solution to the problem.

Climate change is a problem right here and right now. It is, without exaggeration and without creating an alarm, a serious existential threat, he said at the launch of a book titled Climate Change: The Policy, Law and Practice by lawyer Jatinder (Jay) Cheema.

"There is one other thought. Experts have been writing about it, and Cheema addresses it in his book... the need for the establishment of a climate change commission for our country, a permanent body on the lines of NITI Aayog, so that periodically all stakeholders address this issue and push the frontiers to solve the problem from all angles," he said.

Justice Viswanathan said there is also a raging debate among experts about the framework of the umbrella legislation on climate change that India should adopt.

"In the last week alone, there have been two editorial pieces in prominent newspapers on the nature of the legislation. There has been an analysis of how certain developed countries structure their laws to focus solely on regulating carbon emissions. But it is felt that for a developing country like India, that model may not be appropriate," he said.

"What is suggested is a regulatory model where there is development and carbon emissions are tapped from all developments that take place, so we do not compromise on development. And that is the real challenge," the SC judge said.