Adverse Effects Of Climate Change And Natural Calamities In Kerala: A Legal Interpretation

About the Author

Aswathy Sivam M M is a 3rd-year B.A. LL.B student at Government Law College, Thiruvananthapuram, passionate about law, legal research, public speaking, advocacy, and meaningful learning.

Climate change is a phenomena which is inevitable as the working of environment is an act which cannot be changed by human power, it is explicitly the Act of God. But at the same time this act can be redressed and it’s adversities can be limited by human mechanisms, law can be used as a catalyst for redressing, by giving necessities to people who suffered due to these climate and weather changes, law can give them their right to life on Mother Earth that is Article 21 of our Indian Constitution, other than that in India there are so many other laws for coping up with this issue, still there are some areas where these laws are not implemented properly. The same case happened in the case of Kerala which is state which is environmentally diverse in nature with the Arabian sea and the Western Ghats, at the same time environment sensitive and went through a lot of disasters in the years.

Can the impacts of Climate Change, depreciated by environmental laws: Is India in lack of environmental laws and methods

In India there are several laws for dealing with environmental changes, there are laws for the country’s natural resources, ecological changes and for promoting sustainable development like:

Protection of environment is itself a constitutional provision .i.e. in Art 21 of the Constitution , which gives a “Right to Pollution free environment ”, Art 48A “The state shall endeavour to protect and improve the environment and safeguard the forest and wildlife of the country ”and Art 51A(g)“duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forest, lakes, rivers and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures”. Even there is the Ministry of Environment and Forest which is the agency which works for the promotion, planning and enforcing the environmental there are other agencies which works under the MoEF for the improvement of the same such as the Central and State Pollution control boards , the State department of environment etc.

General legislations are also there like the Environment (Protection) Act,1986, for the improvement and protection of the environment , it empowers the central government to maintain pollutions under section 3(3),it also gives the government to restrict and prohibit the harmful activities of industries and there are also other agencies which works under the Act , other than general there are air, water, forest and wildlife acts and tribunal in India.
Departments like the Indian Meteorological Department for navigation of Climate Change, weather and natural calamities

So it can be concluded that there is no deficiency of environmental laws in India.

Role of law in the effects of Climate Change in Kerala

Kerala is the state in India which is known for its beauty of nature, the place which is called as the Gods own Country, the place which is in the lap of the Indian Ocean, the Arabian sea and the Western Ghats, explicitly in the lap of mother nature. It was a place in India with a very less amount of disasters and natural calamities, only at some point, it faced less harmful landslides and sea water rise issues during the monsoon sessions until 2018. 2018 was a game changer in the lives of people in Kerala a year filled with grief and sorrow of it’s people, it is the time when people realised the sensitivity of Kerala’s ecology. The 2018 flood, which was caused due to the inaccuracy of the legal system in protecting the people from a huge disaster. The Indian Meteorological Department, the State Disaster Management Authority(IMD), the waste management system, they failed. It caused the death 433 people owing to the Kerala floods and the total economic losses were estimated at Rs. 31,000 crore. According to the report of the State Disaster Management Authority Kerala received a rain of 821mm between August 1and August 30 as against the normal of 419.3mm, the IMD announced red alerts only for 4 districts rather than announcing a complete red alert on all the 14 districts, due to this in adequate report the state also failed to give awareness to the people and replace them from disaster prone areas, some of the people themselves anticipated the upcoming crisis and shifted from there homes, over 9,500 kilometres of roads were destroyed, 10,000 houses fully destroyed and over 99,000 houses partly damaged over 65,000hecters of land inundated for days, this worse was the situation in Kerala. It was not because of the reason that India is having a very less number of laws for environmental protection or instead Kerala is having no laws for the management of natural calamities and it’s interpretations. It is only because of the reason that these laws were not implemented in the right manner.

The main cause of the disaster was due to the poor waste management system of the state, due to which many sewages and drainage systems were blocked, poor dam management, due to which people got troubled by the rain, due to mining and quarrying done in ecologically sensitive areas and sea shores which caused severe land erosion as a result landslides happened in the state, for landslides deforestation is also a main cause, air pollution which caused which lead to the increase in temperature, due to pollution global warming took place and it resulted in the cause of heavy rain.

The 2018 flood is only one scenario after that in 2024 an unexpected landslide occurred in the state in Wayanad district which resulted in the death of 230 people and the landslide covered almost 8 km. Due to improper waste management the Bhrahmapuram fire happened, in acers of land plastic burned like wild fire suffered people in Kochi, due to the similar reason a man who works as a sewage cleaner and sole bread winner of the family died, as he got trapped in the accumulated plastic wastes. Sea shore mining and quarrying lead to the widening of the sea and as a result it submerged the house of people and became a threat to the people’s livelihood, the lives the marine and the security of the nation because of the mining done by private companies.

All these incidents and human made calamities are happening in a country rather in a state with adequate laws for environmental protection and the prevention of such calamities.

Legal system and Resolution for these Calamities

Beyond the fact that India is having so many laws with regard to environment, the important query is that are they enforced in the right manner? The answer to this question is most probably no because in the case of Kerala also the enforcement of substantiate laws were not up to the mark.

The laws like the Environment Protection Act 1986, even the articles which include Art 21,48A and 51A(g) and laws which are influenced by money and muscle power by mining, quarrying, deforestation, improper waste management and different kinds of pollution are made.

The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957 (MMDR Act) and the Mines Act, 1952, along with related rules and regulations, form the bedrock of mining regulation, including measures to prevent illegal mining, transportation, and storage of minerals. The laws enacted by the Government of Kerala :Kerala Minor Mineral Concession Rules in the year 2015,Kerala Minerals (Prevention of illegal mining, storage and transportation) Rules 2015,Kerala District Mineral Foundation Rules 2018, Kerala Minor Mineral Concession (Amendment) Rules 2023, Kerala Minerals (Prevention of Illegal Mining, Storage and Transportation) (Amendment) Rules 2023, all the rules and regulations should be used and enforced in the right manner, like wise in the case waste management the laws, all these laws can be used in a for good will and the government can also organise awareness campaigns, by giving informations through mobile caller tunes and programs , it can also take adequate measures for stopping the influence of money and muscle power, school and college campaigns can be taken and the initiatives taken by the Kerala Government like ‘planting 1000 trees for cutting 1 tree’ such initiatives can be put forward.

Natural causes

Natural Calamities are inevitable in nature, they can be redressed till a point or its harshness can be decreased by implementing the laws and by reducing the human made pollutions. The United Nations climate change conference of parties (UNCCCOP) also referred these points for redressing the climate changes (I) Reducing human made calamities (II) by the means of adaptation.

Adaptation is one of important factors that human beings need during the time of climate changes because only if we adapt, we will survive, so such organisations must be developed by the Government for giving adequate training for people for coping up with the calamities, they must be mad ready for it. Important life skills must be taught in schools and colleges by making countries like Japan as the role model for the initiative.

The Kerala Government also has put forward various schemes for the same like just after the flood the state proposed the idea of Re-Build Kerala in co-operation with the Central Government and then the climate adaptation mission, i. e. The Kerala Climate Change Adaptation Mission which aims to make the state a carbon-neutral state by 2050, the Haritha karma sena, the Haritha Keralam mission,2013 for green, clean and plastic free Kerala.

These initiates put forward by the Government are essential initiatives which must be embraced by the people, because only if people support these initiatives these missions can be made practical, at last these are for the people itself.