The government, it said, "has failed to take any effective science-based measure", and pointed to a "huge gap in implementation of environmental legislations".

While NGT dismissed the petition, saying that there is "no reason to presume that Paris Agreement and other international protocols are not reflected in the policies of the government of India or are not taken into consideration in granting environmental clearances", the Ridhima Pandey vs Union of India case set a precedent for climate litigation in the country.

According to a database of climate litigation maintained by the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, 10 other such cases have reached Indian courts (three in the Supreme Court and seven in NGT) till December 2022.

The merits and demerits of these cases warrant further analysis.

But what stands out at the moment is climate litigation.

"Litigation is becoming a powerful tool for driving climate action and justice," the United Nations Environment Programme said in a tweet on July 27, along with the release of its ‘Global Climate Litigation Report: 2023 Status Review.’

The number of climate change court cases globally has more than doubled since 2017, the report said.

“In 2017, we reported 884 cases in 24 jurisdictions, and today in our report we say that there are over 2,180 cases in 65 jurisdictions”, Andrew Raine, head of the Frontiers in Environmental Law Unit of UNEP, told UN News. “There is seemingly a new case every week,” he said.

The report is based on cases collected up to December 31, 2022, and identifies six categories most climate change cases fall under:

>Cases relying on human rights enshrined in international law and national constitutions;

>Challenges to domestic non-enforcement of climate-related laws and policies;

>Litigants seeking to keep fossil fuels in the ground;

>Advocates for greater climate disclosures and an end to greenwashing;

>Claims addressing corporate liability and responsibility for climate harms; and

>Claims addressing failures to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

While most cases were brought in the US, climate litigation has picked up worldwide, the report said. 17% of the cases were filed in developing countries.

These legal actions were brought in 65 bodies worldwide: In international, regional, and national courts, tribunals, quasi-judicial bodies, and other adjudicatory bodies, including special procedures of the UN and arbitration tribunals.

"There is a distressingly growing gap between the level of greenhouse gas reductions the world needs to achieve in order to meet its temperature targets, and the actions that governments are actually taking to lower emissions. This inevitably will lead more people to resort to the courts. This report will be an invaluable resource for everyone who wants to achieve the best possible outcome in judicial forums, and to understand what is and is not possible there,” Michael Gerrard, Sabin Center’s Faculty Director, said in a statement.

The cases range from accusations against fossil fuel companies exacerbating climate crisis by misrepresenting dangers (much like the tobacco companies in the 1990s), some that argue that government inaction in limiting global warming risks their basic human rights, and even local governments seeking damages for billions they paid in mitigation and adaptation.

The database showed that the most vulnerable – children, youth, women, senior citizens, and indigenous people – were using litigation to ensure their needs were considered as governments plan climate action.

Thirty-four cases were filed by or on behalf of children and youth, including girls as young as seven and nine years of age in Pakistan and India, respectively.

NGT's intervention in 2020 and "complete ban on sale and use of all kinds of firecrackers in Delhi and the National Capital Region" amid worsening Air Quality Index (AQI), observing that "nobody has a right to carry on business at the cost of the health of others".

A separate report by the Asian Development Bank in 2020, ‘Climate Change, Coming Soon To a Court Near You’, credited decisions from Indian courts for other Asian countries expanding constitutional rights – especially the right to life – to include a right to a clean and functioning environment.

These decisions recognised that environmental damage deprives citizens of their capacity to live fully, with a right to life, health, food and safe drinking water. And environmental harm interferes with the enjoyment of these rights, a concept known as environmental constitutionalism which emerged in the legal lexicon at the 1972 Stockholm Convention on Human Environment.

Among key cases across the world, the Sabin Center review highlighted one in Switzerland, where plaintiffs made their case based on the disproportionate impact of climate change on senior women.

Thousands of elderly Swiss women claimed that their government's "woefully inadequate" efforts in the face of rising temperatures put them at risk of dying during heatwaves. A study found that last year, heatwaves killed more than 61,000 people across Europe, most of them women over 80.

The heatwave in Europe this summer highlighted these concerns, after Switzerland's hottest year on record last year.

Other key cases included the UN Human Rights Committee concluding that the Australian government violated its human rights obligations to Torres Strait Islanders (the petitioners accused the government of failing to ensure long-term habitability of the islands); Brazil's Supreme Court holding that the Paris Agreement is a human rights treaty (meaning the government is constitutionally obliged to combat climate change); a Dutch court ordering oil and gas company Shell to comply with the Paris Agreement and reduce its carbon emissions by 45% from 2019 levels by 2030; and a UK court finding that the government failed to comply with its legal duties under its Climate Change Act 2008 when approving its net-zero strategy.

The crux of the cases remains the same: shed light on the worst perpetrators, give those vulnerable a window to voice concerns, and force governments and private companies to act on their commitments.

In the UNEP report, authors anticipated a rise in cases of migrants, internally displaced people, and asylum seekers forced to relocate, partly due to the impacts of the climate crisis.

Several crises in the first half of the year have forced millions out of their homes, with a wildfire forcing thousands out of their homes in Hawaii as recently as this week.

In subsidence-hit Joshimath, while experts continue to debate over the causes of the crisis, hundreds of houses were left inhabitable in January.

Meanwhile, experts fear backlash.

“By this, we mean cases brought against climate activists, or cases against those who are seeking to take climate actions,” said Raine.