Hailed as a step toward building support for a United Nations climate treaty to be negotiated in 2015, there’s been an explosion in the number of laws passed around the world aimed at confronting climate change in the past 20 years.
Countries that together account for most global greenhouse gas emissions have passed nearly 500 laws since the Kyoto Protocol climate treaty was signed in 1992.
Reuters Newsagency reports emerging economies lead many of the recent efforts, according to a report released by the Global Legislators Organisation (GLOBE) and the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics.
Prior to the treaty, fewer than 40 laws addressing climate were on the books.
Much of the major legislative action on climate change in 2013 took place in countries such as China and Mexico, whose economies are growing rapidly.
The report was launched in Washington to an audience of over 100 legislators from 50 countries in the United States Senate’s Kennedy Caucus Room.
The UN climate treaty to be negotiated next year is expected to consist of pledges of specific actions, or “contributions,” from nearly 200 countries, aimed at reducing greenhouse gases.
Reuters reports Senator Edward Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who had co-authored a comprehensive climate-change bill when he was a US representative, said the study should encourage the US Congress to enact its own climate legislation.
The bill co-authored by Senator Markey had passed the House of Representatives in 2009 but died in the Senate a year later.
“We need an international movement to pass climate legislation, and nowhere is that movement needed more than here in the United States,” Senator Markey said.
Reuters reports others at the report’s launch, including House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, said that with the US House now controlled by Republicans and the Senate run by Democrats, efforts at legislation are likely to be stymied by policy gridlock.
“Action in Congress right now is unfortunately not in the cards,” said Todd Stern, the US State Department’s special envoy on climate change and lead US climate negotiator.
The US will achieve emissions cuts through executive action taken by the administration, he added.
The US is pushing for a new approach to the climate treaty; under the previous, the requirement for unanimous consent made it difficult to agree to any changes.
Among the requirements envisioned by the US for countries’ contributions to the global pact are that they conform to a common timeframe with other countries, and be specific, quantified and quantifiable.
U
N climate chief Christiana Figueres said it was too early to predict what governments would agree to at the 2015 climate summit in Paris.
“It is clear that they are going to have a draft in Paris that will be robust, give certainty and be politically digestible in all countries,” she told Reuters.
Several preliminary meetings of climate negotiators are on the agenda.
The next will take place next month in Bonn, and in September, heads of state will be invited to participate in a high level climate summit hosted by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in New York.
