More than 50 lawyers have signed a petition to allow people to instigate climate-related lawsuits as the government mulls amending the Greenhouse Gas Reduction and Management Act (溫室氣體減量及管理法).
Globally, climate advocates are increasingly using lawsuits in national and international courts as a strategy to prompt action, Environmental Rights Foundation president Lin San-chia (林三加) said yesterday.
This is because demanding legal remedies to climate change might bring about real change, Lin said.
However, Taiwan lacks a theoretical framework and legal mechanisms to tackle such lawsuits, he said.
As the government is writing draft amendments to the act, lawmakers should implement the promises of the Basic Environment Act (環境基本法), which includes enabling citizen suits for environmental causes, he said.
Taichung Bar Association president Yang Hsiao-hua (楊銷樺) said that some public issues should to be hammered out in the courts rather than the streets.
“Taiwan’s environmental activism started in the streets,” Yang said. “This year is when the nation should start a new chapter on dealing with climate issues ... instead of returning to where it began, which will cost more social resources.”
Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association attorney Kuo Hung-yi (郭鴻儀) said that President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) needs policies to show that her vow to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 is not an empty slogan.
Adding a citizens’ suits article to the act would utilize the public as a check on polluters and ensure that the government enforces the rules, Kuo said.
“Climate governance does not happen with the pen,” Environmental Jurists’ Association executive director Chien Kai-lun (簡凱倫) said.
“Instead, executive orders, regulations and action have to be coordinated,” Chien said.
Civic engagement and citizens’ suits over climate issues are key to climate governance, Chien said, adding that the former should guide policymaking and the latter provide a policy implementation oversight mechanism.
Speaking at an Earth Day event in Taipei on Thursday, Tsai said that the government had begun to assess and plan a possible path to reach net-zero emissions by 2050.
Taiwan’s previous target, set in 2015, was to halve emissions by 2050.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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