(Daily News Scan - DNS English) Zero Carbon Law
Important Points:
Recently, the New Zealand’s parliament has passed The Zero Carbon Act. This has made New Zealand the world’s first country to make a legal climate change target in its law. This Act will help New Zealand to commit to Zero carbon emission by 2050, which is a part of the country’s attempts to meet its Paris climate accords commitments.
In this DNS we will look into details of this Zero Carbon Act.
Climate change is a global crisis that is impacting our homes and livelihood. The planet has warmed by 1 degree centigrade since pre industrial times. This is mainly due to human green house gas emission.
The Act is titled Climate Change Response (Zero Carbon) Amendment Act. It is a frame work by which New Zealand will be able to develop and implement climate change policies in line with the Paris Agreement. This will help in keeping a limit on temperature increase to 1.5 degree Celsius.
The idea for the bill was first proposed by the Youth led climate organisation Generation Zero. Earlier the idea was to propose a separate legislation under The Zero Carbon Bill, but the country’s government decided to introduce an amendment to the existing Climate Change Responses Act 2002 such that all climate change legislation remains under one act.
The Bill was first introduced in May 2019. The third reading of the amendment bill was passed on November 7 2019. This bill is loosely modelled on Britain’s 2008 Climate Change Act.
The Zero Carbon Act aims to reduce all greenhouse gases
except methane to net zero by 2050. It aims to reduce emission of biogenic
methane produced from biological sources. The act has separate targets for
biogenic methane because methane is short lived gas and degrades into atmosphere
over the decades. This act looks forward to establish an independent Climate
Change Commission and to establish a system of emissions budget.
As per the New Zealand’s Ministry of Environment the country is well positioned
to undertake steps to mitigate climate change. The country’s capacity to
generate electricity from renewable resources is 80%. Moreover the country is
also planning to phase out the use of offshore oil and gas. In addition to this
the government is working towards investing over $14.5 billion to upgrade and
better its public transport system along with walking and cycling infrastructure
over the next 10 years.
Globally there are almost 1500 laws on climate change. Among these over 100 of them were introduced after the Paris Agreement and over 28 of them explicitly reference the agreement. As per the policy brief released in 2018 all 197 signatories of the Paris agreement, have at least one law or policy on climate change.
Looking forward to India’s contribution in Climate change legislation we can see that -The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment include the phase 2 of India’s Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme. Apart from this India also has a National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC). Within this action plan there are 8 missions that will be responsible for achieving the broad goals of adaption and mitigation. The 8 mission are – National Solar Mission, National Mission for Enhanced Solar Energy, National Mission on Sustainable Habitat, National Water mission, National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem, National Mission for a Green India, National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture and National Mission on Strategic Knowledge for Climate Change. A part from these there is law like Environment Protection Act 1986, AIR Prevention and control of pollution Act 1974.
Now lets us lastly understand what climate change is and why it needs our attention.
Climate change is a phenomenon that affects the global and regional climate. Glaciers have shrunk, plants and animal ranges have shifted, accelerated sea level rise and more intense heat waves are few examples of global warming due to climate change. The basic or main reason for climate change is due to burning of fossil fuels. This emits the carbon dioxide and other green house gases into the air.
We can take few measures to stop climate change on our ends like recycle, encourage the use of public transport, and inculcate the habit of using renewable energy resource rather than using the fossil fuel.
