Abstract

Climate change represents a structural threat to India’s constitutional guarantee of life, health, and dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. This article seeks to explore the role of carbon taxation in India’s constitutional framework of addressing climate change and reviews how Indian courts might evaluate a carbon taxation framework in India under Article 21 of the Constitution of India. The article begins with an overview of the emergence of carbon taxation globally, starting with Finland’s pioneering carbon taxation legislation in 1990, and places India’s Clean Energy Cess on coal in the broader context of quasi-carbon taxation that internalized, to some extent, environmental costs of fossil fuels. The article tracks this process of Indian courts developing environmental and climate law under Article 21, including the emergence of the right to clean environment, polluter pays and precautionary principles, intergenerational equity, and public trust doctrine. The article examines this in the context of significant cases such as Vellore Citizens’ Welfare Forum v. Union of India and subsequent cases to illustrate this in terms of their alignment with India’s international obligations to underpin strong carbon pricing with a clear carbon tax. The article then examines new forms of climate litigation in India, including petitions such as Ridhima Pandey v. Union of India, in which youth assert that inaction on climate change breaches their right to intergenerational justice and clean environment. The article also finally examines the scope for the Indian courts to adjudicate the carbon tax, based on parameters such as arbitrariness, proportionality, and federal competence, with reference to landmark judgments in Canada’s Reference Re Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and Germany’s Neubauer judgment. The overall conclusion is that the carbon tax is likely to be upheld, not as violating Article 21, but as being constitutionally mandated as an imperative measure to safeguard life, health, and the environment in the age of climate change.

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