THE ROLE OF NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORKS IN IMPLEMENTING INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE AGREEMENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES BETWEEN INDIA AND GERMANY
AUTHOR – MADHUR TIWARI, RESEARCH SCHOLAR AT AMITY LAW SCHOOL, NOIDA, UTTAR PRADESH. EMAIL – MADHURT88@GMAIL.COM
BEST CITATION – MADHUR TIWARI, THE ROLE OF NATIONAL LEGAL FRAMEWORKS IN IMPLEMENTING INTERNATIONAL CLIMATE AGREEMENTS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES BETWEEN INDIA AND GERMANY, INDIAN JOURNAL OF LEGAL REVIEW (IJLR), 5 (5) OF 2025, PG. 451-463, APIS – 3920 – 0001 & ISSN – 2583-2344
Abstract
The growing worldwide climate problem calls for strong national legal systems to turn international climate accords into efficient home policy. With a comparison of environmental policies in India and Germany, this study paper investigates how national legal frameworks implement international climate obligations. Both countries, as members to treaties such as the Paris Agreement, have particular difficulties and possibilities in matching their legal systems with worldwide climate objectives. Supported by legislation like the Environment Protection Act, 1986, and policies such as the National Action Plan on Climate Change, India, a rising country, strikes environmental sustainability against fast growth and energy access. A developed country, Germany uses its Federal Climate Change Act and Energiewende project to push bold carbon cuts under a robust European Union framework. This paper uses a qualitative comparative method to examine the structure, enforcement, and efficacy of legal systems in both nations, therefore stressing similarities (e.g., renewable energy emphasis) and differences (e.g., economic settings, federal governance). It investigates how India’s adaptation-oriented policies differ from Germany’s mitigation-centric ones and assesses their individual advancement towards Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). Examined together with best practices—Germany’s regulatory strictness and India’s distributed inventions—are key issues including India’s coal reliance and Germany’s industrial pollution. The results highlight the need of context-specific legal systems in reaching worldwide climate goals and provide suggestions for cross-learning and policy improvement. This study helps to clarify how different legal customs and socio-economic reality affect the execution of international climate agreements by contrasting a developing with a developed country, hence opening the path for more efficient worldwide climate control.
Keywords: National action plan; environmental policy; India; Germany; climate agreements