National Climate Change Legal Frameworks in Asia and the Pacific: Climate Change, Coming Soon to A Court Near You—Report Three

By Asian Development Bank

National legal and policy frameworks underpin international climate action because they are the backbone of domestic responses to the climate emergency. Unless they support global objectives, local climate action stalls. Concerned by sluggish national responses to climate change or injured by its impacts, citizens are filing lawsuits, making courts central to national climate governance. To adjudicate these lawsuits, courts require current information about their climate change legal and policy frameworks. This report provides holistic syntheses of the climate legal and policy frameworks of 32 countries in Asia and the Pacific and discusses key legislative trends and climate-relevant constitutional rights.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Asian Development Bank
• Release date: Dec 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9789292625481

Book preview

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION

I.    Judiciaries Play a Role in Domestic Climate Action and Need Resources

The diplomats have done their job: the Paris Agreement points the world in the right direction, and with sophistication and clarity. It does not, however, ensure implementation, which necessarily remains the domain of politicians, businessmen, scientists, engineers, and civil society.¹

These words reveal a fundamental truth—the Paris Agreement is just the beginning of what needs to be done. How might we ensure that the agreement is implemented? Everyone must make climate change personal in their life and contribute to global action.² Only with collective action can humankind limit global warming to well below 2ºC above preindustrial temperatures, ideally to a maximum of 1.5ºC.³ Climate change results from emissions all around us, affecting citizens and ecosystems globally. Implementation must, therefore, occur where emissions and impacts arise.

Countries adopt policies and laws consistent with their global commitments to regulate domestic responses to climate change. As of 26 November 2020, there were 2,082 policies and laws globally.⁴ National legal and policy frameworks are vital for low emission and resilient green growth because they integrate international commitments into the national context and ensure domestic implementation.

Despite the global agreement and growth in climate laws, climate change impacts are mounting, and it is apparent that existing climate pledges are insufficient to meet agreed temperature goals.⁵

Faced with devastating impacts on their lives, citizens are suing for climate action. Climate action includes activities to (i) reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions or concentrations (mitigation), (ii) adjust to the impacts of climate change (adaptation), and (iii) boost the capacity of people and ecosystems to recover from climate impacts (resilience). By 26 November 2020, there were more than 1,200 climate suits in the United States alone and at least 400 climate cases in other countries.⁶ Climate litigation is also growing in Asia and the Pacific, requiring judiciaries to interpret or apply their domestic climate change legal frameworks (see Report Two for a discussion about climate litigation in Asia and the Pacific).

The central role of judges—interpreting, upholding, and shaping laws—makes the judiciary integral to domestic climate action. Courts are increasingly complementing the actions of legislators by deliberating over climate change court cases worldwide.⁷ Patricia Espinosa—Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change—recently commented, Relevant legislation, carefully used, supported and backed by an informed judiciary, will also be crucial for realising our shared aspirations for shaping a resilient, low-carbon and truly sustainable future (footnote 7).

This report—Climate Change, Coming Soon to a Court Near You: National Climate Change Legal Frameworks in Asia and the Pacific—focuses on national climate change legal and policy frameworks in 32 countries in Asia and the Pacific. It belongs to a series of reports on climate law and policy for judges in Asia and the Pacific. Due to the judges’ growing concern about climate change and the fact that more people are suing over it, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) prepared these papers to provide more resources about climate change law.

When determining the usefulness of this report to judges in Asia and the Pacific, ADB took into account the resource constraints that prevent many of its developing member countries from publishing their laws and policies online or translating documents into English. These challenges make the records of national climate laws and policies online incomplete. Consequently, judges, lawyers, interested parties, and international development partners are unable to access exhaustive information about various national climate change legal and policy frameworks in the region. Access to laws benefit everyone, and this report seeks to boost accessibility.

Legal and policy frameworks must also facilitate access to climate finance and other resources from international donors. Each country covered by this report has a national designated authority with the Green Climate Fund.⁸ Clear information about national legal and policy frameworks makes it easier for donors to assess sectoral responsibilities and national reporting standards. These factors are vital for the provision of green finance and other resources.

II.

Report Structure and Scope

Report Three—National Climate Change Legal Frameworks in Asia and the Pacific—reviews climate law and policy frameworks across 32 countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific (Table 1). ADB collected some 880 laws and policies for this