Purpose: The paper investigates the effects of climate change along with ecological and carbon footprint on rice crop production in India during 1982–2016.Design/methodology/approach: The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL), canonical cointegration regression (CCR) and fully modified ordinary least square (FMOLS) models are used in the paper.Findings: A long-run relationship is found between climate change and rice production in India. Results report that ecological footprint and carbon footprint spur long-term rice production. While rainfall boosts rice crop productivity in the short term, it has a negative long-term impact. Further, the findings of ARDL models are validated by other cointegration models, i.e., the FMOLS and CCR models.Research limitations/implications: This study provides insights into the role of ecological footprint and carbon footprint along with climate variables in relation to rice production.Originality/value: In the literature, the effects of ecological and carbon footprint on rice production are missing. Therefore, this is the first study to empirically examine the impact of climate change along with ecological footprint and carbon footprint on rice production in India.