Movements, laws and climate agreements

Where

Khejarli village, near Jodhpur, Rajasthan

When

September 1730

Who

Amrita Devi Bishnoi and 363 Bishnois

The Bishnois are a community of the Thar Desert who follow 29 rules taught by Guru Jambheshwar in the late 15th century; the name is said to come from bis (twenty) and nau (nine). Two of those rules are not to cut green trees and not to harm animals. In 1730 the ruler of Marwar, Maharaja Abhay Singh, sent men to cut the village's khejri trees for wood for a new palace. Amrita Devi hugged a tree and refused to let it go, and she and her three daughters were killed. Bishnois from 83 villages then came forward one by one to hug the trees, and 363 died before the shocked king stopped the felling and apologised. A temple and a memorial now stand at the site.

Where

Chamoli district, Garhwal Himalayas, in today's Uttarakhand (then Uttar Pradesh)

When

From 1973

Who

Chandi Prasad Bhatt, Gaura Devi, Sunderlal Bahuguna (shown here in 2008)

Chipko means "to stick" or "to cling" in Hindi. In April 1973, at Mandal village, villagers from Chandi Prasad Bhatt's group, the Dasholi Gram Swarajya Sangh, drove away loggers who had come to cut ash trees for a sports goods company. In March 1974, at Reni, Gaura Devi led 27 women into the forest to face the loggers while the men were away, and the trees were saved. Sunderlal Bahuguna carried the message across the hills on long walks and later fought the Tehri Dam. In 1980 Prime Minister Indira Gandhi banned the felling of trees in the Himalayan forests of Uttar Pradesh for 15 years. Chandi Prasad Bhatt won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 1982, the movement won the Right Livelihood Award in 1987, and Bahuguna received the Padma Vibhushan in 2009.

Where

Palakkad district, Keralam, in the Nilgiri hills of the Western Ghats

When

Campaign from 1973; national park from 1984

Who

The Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (a people's science group), the poet Sugathakumari, scientists and students

Silent Valley is one of the last stretches of untouched tropical evergreen rainforest in India. The Kerala State Electricity Board planned a hydroelectric dam on the Kunthipuzha river that would have drowned about 8 square kilometres of it, along with the home of the endangered lion-tailed macaque. The "Save Silent Valley" campaign grew into one of India's fiercest environmental debates of the 1970s. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi stepped in, the dam was dropped in 1983, and the valley was declared a national park in 1984. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi formally opened it in 1985.

Where

The Narmada valley in Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra

When

From 1985

Who

Medha Patkar (shown here in 2017) and Baba Amte

The Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat is the largest of many dams planned on the Narmada. Its reservoir would flood villages, farms and forests upstream, forcing many families, a large share of them adivasis (tribal people), to leave their land. The Narmada Bachao Andolan asked for fair resettlement and questioned whether such big dams were worth it, using marches, long hunger strikes and court cases. Under its pressure the World Bank, which had lent money for the dam, ordered an independent review and pulled out in 1993. Medha Patkar and Baba Amte shared the Right Livelihood Award in 1991. The Supreme Court later let the work go on, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi opened the dam in 2017.

When

From 1987 (some sources say 1991)

Who

Vandana Shiva

Vandana Shiva grew up in Dehradun and studied physics before turning to ecology. Navdanya means "nine seeds" or "new gift". It helps farmers keep their own traditional seeds in community seed banks, so they can save and swap them instead of buying new seed every year, and it promotes organic farming. Shiva argues that the chemical-heavy farming of the Green Revolution harmed India's soil, and she campaigns against patents on seeds, an idea she calls "seed freedom". She won the Right Livelihood Award in 1993 and also wrote about women's role in movements like Chipko.

Where

Union Carbide pesticide factory, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh

When

The night of 2 to 3 December 1984; this photo is from 1985

On a winter night, a poisonous gas called methyl isocyanate (MIC) leaked from a tank at this pesticide factory and spread over the sleeping city. It killed thousands of people and harmed hundreds of thousands more, making it the world's worst industrial disaster. It showed that India's laws were too narrow: the Water and Air Acts each covered only one kind of pollution. So in 1986 Parliament passed the Environment (Protection) Act, an "umbrella" law that lets the central government set standards for any pollution, control dangerous chemicals, shut down harmful factories and demand environmental impact assessments before big projects.

Where

Stockholm, Sweden

When

5 to 16 June 1972

This was the first big UN meeting about the environment. It created the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), based in Nairobi, Kenya, the first UN agency with its headquarters in a developing country. Its opening day, 5 June, became World Environment Day, held every year since 1973; India hosted it in 2018 with the theme "Beat Plastic Pollution". Prime Minister Indira Gandhi told the conference that poverty and the environment could not be separated. In this photo, taken the day before it opened, delegates cycle through Stockholm with the conference's leader, Maurice Strong, in the middle.

Where

Agreed in Montreal, Canada

When

Agreed 16 September 1987; in force from 1 January 1989

High in the sky, the ozone layer soaks up most of the Sun's harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays, which cause sunburn and skin cancer. Chemicals called CFCs, then used in fridges, air conditioners and spray cans, were destroying it, and in 1985 scientists reported a huge "hole" over Antarctica. The Vienna Convention of 1985 set up talks, and the Montreal Protocol set dates to stop making CFCs and other ozone-eating chemicals. It is the first UN treaty signed up to by every country in the world, 198 parties in all. The Kigali Amendment (2016) adds HFCs, the gases that replaced CFCs, because they heat the planet. The ozone layer is slowly healing and should recover over Antarctica by about 2066. 16 September is World Ozone Day.

When

October 1987

Who

The World Commission on Environment and Development, chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, a former Prime Minister of Norway (shown here in 2009)

The UN asked this commission to look at the environment and development together, as one problem. Its report gave the best-known definition of sustainable development: growth that meets the needs of people today without spoiling the chance for future generations to meet their own needs. The idea shaped the Rio Earth Summit five years later.

Where

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

When

3 to 14 June 1992

Twenty years after Stockholm, world leaders met in Rio. Two treaties were opened for signing there: the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), to stop dangerous warming, and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), to protect the variety of life. The summit also agreed Agenda 21, a plan for sustainable development in the 21st century, the Rio Declaration and the Forest Principles, and started talks on a treaty against desertification, signed in 1994. The countries in the UNFCCC have met every year since 1995 at a COP, the Conference of the Parties, where all the later climate deals were made.

Where

Agreed at COP3, in the Kyoto International Conference Center, Japan

When

Adopted 11 December 1997; in force from 16 February 2005

The Kyoto Protocol was the first treaty to set legally binding targets for cutting greenhouse gases. Only developed, industrialised countries had targets, because they had caused most of the warming so far; developing countries such as India and China had none. It covered six gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide and three factory-made gases (HFCs, PFCs and sulphur hexafluoride). Its first period ran from 2008 to 2012, and the Doha Amendment stretched it to 2020. The United States never joined, and Canada pulled out. The hall where it was agreed was designed by the architect Sachio Otani and opened in 1966, with sloping walls and few upright ones.

Where

Agreed at COP21, near Paris, France

When

Adopted 12 December 2015; in force from 4 November 2016

Who

In this photo, France's Laurent Fabius, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and President François Hollande celebrate the deal

In Paris, 196 parties agreed to keep the rise in the world's average temperature well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to try to limit it to 1.5 degrees. Instead of targets handed down, as in Kyoto, every country, rich or poor, writes its own climate plan, called a Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC), and must make it stronger every five years. The United States left in 2020, rejoined in 2021 and left again on 27 January 2026.

Where

Belém, at the mouth of the Amazon, Brazil

When

10 to 22 November 2025 (one day longer than planned)

The first COP held in the Amazon ended with a package called the Global Mutirão, a Brazilian word for a community coming together to get a job done. Countries agreed to at least triple money for adaptation (coping with the effects of climate change) by 2035, to set up a Just Transition Mechanism to help workers and communities move away from fossil fuels fairly, and to track adaptation with 59 shared indicators. Oil-producing countries blocked a plan to phase out fossil fuels, so Brazil announced two voluntary roadmaps, on fossil fuels and on deforestation, outside the formal deal. Brazil also launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a fund to pay countries for keeping tropical forests standing. Many observers called the result weak. This photo shows the global climate march through Belém on 15 November 2025.

Where

Launched in Paris; headquarters in Gurugram, Haryana

When

30 November 2015, on the first day of COP21

Who

Narendra Modi and François Hollande, with Ban Ki-moon (right)

India and France launched the ISA to spread solar power, first among the sunny countries lying wholly or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn. Members share know-how and work together to bring down the cost of solar power and raise money for solar projects. In January 2016 Modi and Hollande laid the foundation stone of its headquarters in Gurugram. As of October 2026 it has more than 110 member countries.