Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant on Saturday emphasised that the only defensible development is one that is environmentally responsible and stressed that India’s growth must be aligned with ecological sustainability and the principles of energy justice.
He said that the country must be prepared and equipped to undertake a delicate balancing exercise between “our pursuit of development and our fidelity to a greener future”. Addressing the International Conference on Sustainable Energy: An agenda for India @2047, he stressed that India’s vision for 2047 must be grounded in justice. “The way I see it, must synchronise economic growth with ecological sensibility. This is because, as a nation, we are still very much on our development journey, and therefore we cannot afford to treat environmental protection and economic progress as a binary choice.”
Stressing that energy justice is not an “alien concept” imported from the developed world, the Chief Justice of India said, “It is the moral architecture that allows a rising nation such as ours to grow without compromising what belongs to every citizen: clean air, clean water, and a livable future.”