Date: October 3, 2012

Researcher Kathinka Fürst was invited in the Climate Change Law and Policy Forum No. 12. in discussing some of the important development in China’s environmental litigations, and behind these litigations, the actions and movement of environment groups. Researcher Fürst dedicated herself in China’s environmental judicial studies. Her research methods are not limited to related litigation contexts only but she thrived to understand the dynamic and proceedings behind environmental litigations in China, using research methods of sociology, such as the application of field studies.

Researcher Fürst pointed out that the environmental litigations in China has boomed in recent years. Related issues of litigation movement depend on the demand, support and claims of environmental groups, just like the situations in other countries. The most common environmental litigation in China nowadays is civil litigation, mainly regarding water or air pollution affecting citizen’s life and causing damages. With the support of environmental groups, actions were taken to ask for remedies from corporations whom had caused such pollutions. For these local environmental group assisted in claiming remedies, most litigations are prone to be affected by local politics, since under the system of the central government’s tax reform, there were pressures of renting, investment promotion, tax revenue collections, and local politics issues in each province.

However, for big cases that received national attentions, the litigation might proceed under national or even global environmental groups by the request of the central government. Therefore, when it comes to observing China’s environmental litigations, one must put in the contributions of politics and the attributes of the environmental groups into discussions. That is also why her research was conducted through field studies. Researcher Fürst pointed out that most of the environmental litigations in China were overruled by the court for reasons such as no jurisdiction, or the party’s lack of standing to commence a litigation. In recent years, the environmental litigations prospered since China has a special petition system, but for the observation of environmental litigations, the main emphasis should be put in the legislative and judicial framework of China and other pursuit alternatives available for further discussions.

Date: September, 28, 2012

Climate Change Law and Policy Forum No. 11 has invited Kathinka Fürst, researcher from Netherlands China Law Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands as the panel speaker, addressing a speech regarding the roles and functions of environmental private sectors in China. Recently, there are some scholars who had changed their research field of the control and management model in national sectors and switched it to researching private sectors when it comes to control and management measures of the environment. With this basis, researcher Fürst further discussed issues as follows during the forum:

1. The roles that non-governmental organizations play in industrial pollution governance;
2. Why and how environmental NGO participate in control and supervision of industrial pollution, and their functions in supervision, elimination, reduction and prevention of industrial pollution, and the considerations behind these strategies;
3. How the inner and outward premises influence environmental NGOs’ orientations, their potentials and roles.

Researcher Fürst established diverse and abundant cases as bases with field studies in her research methods, and then collected information through observing actions of Chinese NGOs. She also interviewed their representatives and read through related articles and regulations. Firstly, researcher Fürst analyzed 37 NGOs in China for their organizational participation, current statuses, and histories regarding industrial pollution supervision.

1. Involvement period: In 1990s, there has been NGOs involving in industrial pollution supervision, but the number of such NGOs grew significantly after 2000, while the government’s tolerance for environmental NGOs differ in different regions.

2. Issues handled: Many NGOs think that the issues of handling pollution is too sensitive, therefore private environmental sectors do not handle all kinds of industrial pollution issues. For example, NGOs care more about water pollution than soil pollution when it comes to contaminant sources. And many of which were contributed to the statuses before pollution rather than after the pollution.

3. Time involved: The time frame when environmental NGOs were established and at the time being involved in different issues of industrial pollution are one of the reasons that caused differences.

4. Functions and relationship with corporations: Most environmental NGOs have limited understanding as how to effectively affect corporate behaviors, and were under the impression that Chinese corporate does not care about environmental NGOs.

With so many outward and inner reasons, environmental NGOs cannot fully strive in their supervision potentials. Researcher Fürst addressed that, there are a couple of supervising functions that NGOs did achieve: collecting and exposing information, pushing dialogues, raising awareness of the citizens in environmental pollution and its education, setting up standards, assisting in litigation, ability development and providing services in the progression of seizing, reducing and preventing industrial pollution. However, many outward and inner premises did limit the potentials and functions for environmental NGOs in supervising industrial pollution: from the inner premises perspective, the limitation lies within the reliance to its founder, lack of managing abilities, lack of quality in human resources, short of social resources, and insufficiency in technological abilities. As to the outer reasons, geographical location is one of the limitations. Other outward reasons include attitudes from the government, limited sources of stable fund, trust and distrust outside of the NGOs, and regulations causing limitation for environmental NGOs to develop freely. All in all, environmental NGOs did have become many forms affecting influences in supervising environmental pollution, such as the influences to particular cases, assisting or pressuring to law enforcement, applying different methods pressuring corporations to make promises, pushing and changing supervision standards for more effective implements, anti-monopoly in decision making, allowing diverse opinions in public debate and challenging mainstream voices in environmental development, and connecting democratic procedure with environmental movement. However, there are different opinions as to the influences generated by different actions, causing divergence in different environmental NGOs. For the connections between each cause; further issues shall be discussed.

Date: September, 28, 2012

Climate Change Law and Policy Forum No. 11 has invited Kathinka Fürst, researcher from Netherlands China Law Centre in Amsterdam, the Netherlands as the panel speaker, addressing a speech regarding the roles and functions of environmental private sectors in China. Recently, there are some scholars who had changed their research field of the control and management model in national sectors and switched it to researching private sectors when it comes to control and management measures of the environment. With this basis, researcher Fürst further discussed issues as follows during the forum:

1. The roles that non-governmental organizations play in industrial pollution governance;
2. Why and how environmental NGO participate in control and supervision of industrial pollution, and their functions in supervision, end, reduction and prevention of industrial pollution, and the considerations behind these strategies;
3. How the inner and outward premises influence environmental NGOs’ orientations, their potentials and roles.

Researcher Fürst established diverse and abundant cases as bases with field studies in her research methods, and then collect information through observing actions of Chinese NGOs. She also interviewed their representatives and read through related articles and regulations. Firstly, researcher Fürst analyzed 37 NGOs in China for their organizational participation, current statuses, and histories regarding industrial pollution supervision.

1. Involvement period: In 1990s, there has been NGOs involving in industrial pollution supervision, but the number of such NGOs grew significantly after 2000, while the government’s tolerance for environmental NGOs differ in different regions.

2. Issues handled: Many NGOs think that the issues of handling pollution is too sensitive, therefore private environmental sectors do not handle all kinds of industrial pollution issues. For example, NGOs care more about water pollution than soil pollution when it comes to contaminant source. And many dedicated to the statuses before pollution rather than after the pollution.

3. Time involved: The time when environmental NGOs established and involved in industrial pollution are one of the reasons of their differences.

4. Functions and relationship with corporations: Most environmental NGOs have limited understanding as to how to effectively affect corporate behaviors, and think that Chinese corporate does not care about environmental NGOs.

With so many outward and inner reasons, environmental NGOs cannot fully strive in their supervision potentials. Researcher Fürst addressed that, there are a couple of supervising functions that NGOs did achieve: collecting and exposing information, pushing dialogues, raising awareness of the citizens in environmental pollution and its education, setting up standards, assisting in litigation, ability development and providing services in the progression of ending, reducing and preventing industrial pollution. However, many outward and inner premises did limit the potentials and functions for environmental NGOs in supervising industrial pollution: from the inner premises perspective, the limitation lies within the reliance to its founder, lack of managing abilities, lack of quality in human resources, short of social resources, and insufficiency in technological abilities. As to the outer reasons, geographical location is one of the limitations. Other outward reasons include attitudes from the government, limited sources of stable fund, trust and distrust outside of the NGOs, and regulations causing limitation for environmental NGOs to develop freely. All in all, environmental NGOs did have become many forms affecting influences in supervising environmental pollution, such as the influences to particular cases, assisting or pressuring to law enforcement, applying different methods pressuring corporations to make promises, pushing and changing supervision standards for more effective implements, anti-monopoly in decision making, allowing diverse opinions in public debate and challenging mainstream voices in environmental development, and connecting democratic procedure with environmental movement. However, there are different opinions as to the influences generated by different actions, causing divergence in different environmental NGOs. For the connections between each cause; further issues shall be discussed.

PLES has hosted a Review Seminar regarding Taiwan’s policy towards Climate Change on October 26, 2012, at NTU College of Law. The seminar was hosted by Vice Principal Ching-Hua Lo, with the consciousness of the scholars, reviewed and made suggestions regarding Taiwan climate change policies.

While the abnormal climate conditions which were caused by climate change have caused damages throughout the world, Taiwan is no exception. Our government were starting to take the issues of climate change seriously, however, the recent development had been only on the level of relief work and policy propaganda while the responsible framework were unclear, and the policy does not have a long-term organization and actual measures. The foundational information research was ambiguous, and the government should really focus on the damages prevention and the adjustment of the industry in the whole picture. However, the current governmental policy had left some rooms for us to wonder.

National Taiwan University is the leading academic institute in Taiwan, and has carried academic and social responsibility for the climate change development issues. With this understanding, National Taiwan University has established PLES, hoping to coordinate a academic organization center to propose suggestions and reviews of the policies, thus pushing the awareness for the government to take climate change corresponding strategies more seriously. Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh of NTU College of Law, Professor Kuei-Tien Chou from NTU College of Social Sciences and Assistant Professor Tze-Luen Lin started from the perspectives of policy, risk investigation and urban climate change management, pointed out the deficiency and suggestion of the current climate change development in Taiwan. PLES Chief Director of Hung-Chi Kuo, Professor Jeng-Ping Chen from NTU College of Science, Ching-Pin Tung of NTU College of Bio Resources and Agriculture and NTU College of Law Associate Professor Wen-Chen Chang gathered together in the seminar, expressing their concerns and worries regarding climate change issues on behalf of National Taiwan University, urging that government should take a more overall and grounding strategies towards climate change issues.

On the policy perspectives of climate change, Professor Yeh pointed out that the corresponding strategies of Taiwan in organization, policy, and legislations seemed to be diverse, but were actually scattered, and we couldn’t feel the intense ambition and intent from the government, the strategies did not have a overall and deep consideration, thus it could not form a sufficient and efficient fundamental system. On the organization level, there should be a interdisciplinary coordinating and adjusting mechanism legislated under Executive Yuan. There should be duty committees assisting the minister of Executive Yuan to coordinate all chiefs from each department to plan and execute the strategy plan. On the policy perspective, the government should focus and move forward from GHG emission reduction and adjust the climate change policy plan accordingly, instead of pausing on mere slogans. On the legislation part, the government should bring a legislative framework for short-term correspondence, determinedly and progressively pushing the legislation in order to solve the current struggle of GHG emission reduction that has been currently stuck in the Legislation.

While our citizens’ understanding and knowledge of climate change should be what the government could handle more. Professor Chou’s research started from the points of climate change risk knowledge, the knowledge of sustainable society, risk communication, risk management, and expert politics, pointing out that our citizens have had the awareness that the climate change are the most important issues in the world. On Economic development and sustainable environment issues, people are getting to understand that they are not mutually exclusive. On the energy issues’ part, about 80 percent of the citizens were willing to pay for sustainable energy, and most of them do not support nuclear energy as the substitution. All in all, the awareness of sustainable society and the justice of the generations had risen. On the risk communication part, the research showed that there lack the risk communication; several implications of governmental risk communication were insufficient. As to risk management part, more than 70 percent of the people deemed that the government were not doing enough, and hold their trust towards the government. Generally, people believe that the enterprises did not carry the social responsibility than they currently did now. As to the expert politics perspective, there was a debate between whether we should trust and rely on the experts on this matter. But overall, the policy of climate change should be more transparent, and there should be more private participation and corporation than it is now.

While the five urban cities forming and under the circumstances of urbanization, the government should focus more on climate change urban management. Assistant Professor Lin analyzed the struggles of Taiwan climate change management from the point of view of economy, system, knowledge, politics, and culture, pointing out that there existed no independent monetary resources on economy, and there wasn’t enough human resources within this category. For example, as to the system issues, the central government and local government shared an ambiguous line between their power and duty; the climate change related bill were often postponed; there were restrictions for international cooperation, and that the adjustment coordinating mechanism were lacking in-between cities. As to the knowledge part, there were insufficient professional knowledge regarding climate change issues and the local information knowledge was also deprived. On the politics perspective, the level of priority of climate change should be higher than it is now. There should be a long-term evaluation and organization regarding its policy and should not always be limited within the issues of election strategy. On the cultural part, the consumer environmental awareness should be raised. Assistant Professor Lin suggested that, we should start from strengthening the climate change policy linkage between central government and local governments. Other methods ought to carry out are: strengthening the official communication platform, improving international cooperation, involving more interested parties, and establishing multi-level of knowledge network to solve the current urban climate change management issues.

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PLES has hosted the second seminar of “Responding Strategies of Law and Policy - Sustainable Environmental Regulations under Climate Change” at Multimedia Room of Tsai Lecture Hall on May 12, 2012. Here is the summary of the third session of the seminar.

This seminar was hosted by Professor Chien-Liang Lee of NTU College of Law. Associate Professor Wen-Chen Chang began with the presentation of “The global Practice of Including Climate Change into Environmental Effect Assessment: Comparative Analysis of the Driving Force” as the topic. Associate Professor Chang started from article 4 of UNFCCC, saying that according to this article, all parties should “take into account their common but differentiated responsibilities and their specific national and regional development priorities, objectives and circumstances,” and further examine how and why each nation include climate change variables into environmental assessment. While UNFCCC hasn’t made it a compulsory regulation, countries in Europe, America, Asia, and Pacific Island has included climate change variables into environmental assessment. Associate Professor Chang further pointed out from the perspectives of internal country and international drive forces to analyze the reason behind. Associate Professor Chang addressed that, with all the nations, America and Australia are the countries which systematically enforcing the climate change variables into environmental assessment, with the driving forces from inside of the countries instead of the outer international influences. With the driving force that came from inside of a country, the judiciary, administration, and legislation could work together in the application of environmental assessment in the U.S. and Australia. Geographical and commercial reasons are also important for environmental assessment in Iceland, the Netherlands, and those North European and Southeastern countries. In retrospect of the unsuccessful practice in Taiwan, Professor Chang has pointed out that the limitation of what Taiwan faced in international politics are not necessarily negative. We should focus on judicial litigation, legislation and administrative lobbying as the active actions in bringing the changes for future trend of climate change policy. While Professor Chang provided the aspect of a global observer, panelist Assistant Professor Ying-Lei Chang offered a perspective from micro-observation, giving further insights for the research.

The second part of the seminar was spoken by Associate Professor Hsu, Yao-Ming, presenting the topic of “EU Climate Change Regulations and Legal system and the Consistency with WTO legal system.” The large scale of climate change issues has brought the adaptations for international regulatory management.  European Union is one of the most successful supernational organizations with the fundamental focus of economic cooperation, their efforts are highly important in the fields of research and practices when it comes to the development of climate change policies, and the practices within the global management systems. Associate Professor Hsu first analyzed EU’s policies and actions in the systematic and regulatory portion, and provided his concern regarding energy, GHG emission and carbon trade system. While the climate change policies are highly relevant with the issues of economic development, the tension emerges and needed to be taken care of between EU’s tough environmental strategies and the free trade design of the WTO. The confrontation between these the environmental policies and WTO regulations is mainly the recognition standard of like products and whether the environmental regulations could legitimately make the exception under GATT regulations. The seminar ended with commentator Assistant Professor Yi-Yuan Su reviewing relevant cases regarding the dynamics between internal constitutions, WTO regulations, and EU law.

PLES has hosted the second seminar of “Responding Strategies of Law and Policy - Sustainable Environmental Regulations under Climate Change” at Multimedia Room of Tsai Lecture Hall on May 12, 2012. Here is the summary of the second session of the seminar.

The seminar was hosted by Daigee Shaw , researcher of Institute of Economics, Academia Sinica . During the first session, Professor Wen-chen Shih spoke on the seminar’s topic: ” the Alignment of Our Nation’s Foreign Aid Policies from a Bilateral Financial Mechanisms Perspective for Climate Change.” Professor Shih presented the importance of financial mechanisms for climate change field is increasingly important in either adjustment or mitigation dimensions. On the other hand, the hot research topic of the tension and interaction between climate change and national development policies are receiving more attention, due to the fact that climate change issues have become more and more intertwined with national development than before. Therefore, the “Official Development Aid, ODA” has come in to the picture as one of the projects financed by “Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD,” with the increased amount of climate change foreign aid through years. Professor Shih pointed out that, as the international financial mechanisms are inadequate, implementing a bilateral financial mechanism would be of a more flexible and dominant method in climate change aid. Our diplomatic allies are mostly island countries, and they are easily influenced by climate change effects greatly. Bilateral financial mechanism is a policy of numerous advantages. It grants us the opportunity to offer assistance for our diplomatic allies in a more efficient way; and it also assembles more interaction towards international organizations and development banks. Professor Shih presented a new diagram with the examples of seven international bilateral financial mechanisms, giving us a new idea applying climate change financial mechanism as one of Taiwan’s foreign aid policies. Firstly, as to resources gathering, we could arrange the income from the auctions as sources of the fund aside from the former budget. In that way, we could also encourage private sectors’ involvement. Secondly, as to resources allocation, we could consider investing or aiding international climate fund besides loans, bestowment, or technology aiding. As to the types of the projects, we could slowly allocate our assistance on adjustment projects. Thirdly, we could cooperate with organizations specialized with issues such as foreign aid and environment, and climate change. Panelist Professor Catherine Li began with agreeing with Professor Shih’s contention of brining bilateral financial mechanism into foreign aid policies. She further pointed out that the current foreign aid polices were based on the directives of White Paper of foreign aid policies (published by the ministry of foreign affairs on May, 2009) and the International Cooperation Development Law, and the current issue is that most foreign bestowment policies did not have a supervising system. The bilateral financial mechanism for climate change should avoid this situation, and could better deliberate more ideas through the aspect of investing foreign aid, and the cooperation between public and private sectors.

On the second part of the seminar, Associate Professor Hsin-Chun Wang presented a speech on the topic of: “The Construction of Insurance Mechanism and the Adjustment and Alleviation for Climate Change: Internalized Risk and Moral Risk as the Center.” During the presentation, Professor Wang pointed out that, the mechanisms of insurance and the function of risk distribution have become inevitable when it comes to facing the risk of climate change. However, there is still room for discussion as to how the insurance mechanism should decide on the role participated in risk management, and what insurance models should be adopted. These are also the main focus of Professor Wang’s research presentation of the seminar. Professor Wang examined the bases of the internalization of the risk, and the mechanism of the insurance, pointing out the moral hazard and the difficulties in applying these two principles in climate change issues. The first one is using the principle of tort liability and liability insurance as its bases; and the second one is applying the compensation insurance and the transfer of catastrophic risks as its bases. The difficulty for the former is that we have to consider the above for tort liabilities. Associate Professor Wang further addressed that the future climate change insurance could be cooperated by both public and private sectors, and the Compulsory Automobile Liability Insurance and the Residential Earthquake Insurance Schemes that have been practiced in our country could be its references.

Panelist Professor Shih-Chieh Chang started from the point of efficiency, saying that the insurance mechanism not only has the function of compensation, it also controls the risk in advance, and it internalizes the risk. However, our government and people are lack of the knowledge of insurance; therefore, the government procedure does not include the internalization of risk into its procedures. As for the future risk management for climate change, how to efficiently integrate the resources and use the concept of risk management into government arrangement is a major focus for the central government. And the local government and the public should consider how to enhance the incentives for self-risk management through policies.

PLES has hosted the second seminar of “Responding Strategies of Law and Policy - Sustainable Environmental Regulations under Climate Change” at Multimedia Room of Tsai Lecture Hall on May 12, 2012.

The seminar was hosted by Professor Yi-Nan Liao and presented by PLES chief director Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh on the topic of the liability mechanism of climate change.

On the discussion framework of climate change, the damages and compensation was not deem as an important controlling method as opposed to carbon emission trading, carbon and energy taxes, and treasury systems. During the seminar, Professor Yeh tried to present the challenges of damages and compensation of climate change cases. Professor Yeh went on and addressed the fundamental theories and the layout of the system under climate change liability mechanism.

Professor Yeh pointed out the distinguishing features of “court-oriented”, “case-oriented”, and “tort-oriented” in traditional damages and compensation mechanism. However, these three features are fundamentally confronting with the features of climate change, which are – “the large dimension of time and space”, “high uncertainty”, and “making the decisions with unknown circumstances.” If we were to apply the traditional damages and compensation mechanism (especially the tort cases) to climate change cases, it would then limit the aspects of “the definition of tortfeasor and victim”, “the establishment of causal relationship”, and “the ascertainment of damages.” Professor Yeh further asserted that if we could not break through the limits of the traditional mechanism, then we must reconsider the possibilities of replacing the traditional approach of case-by-case and individualized liability with a more appropriate climate change liability system. The climate change environmental liability system should contain the functions of “redistribution of wealth (justice)” and “controlling GHG emission.”

Professor Yeh continued with the market share liability theories in the American case Sindell, attempting to explain the climate change environmental liability mechanism establishing on the ground that the nation as the subject of fund. On an international perspective, the proportion of liability should be based on the sum of historical emission of each country, and the nations should establish “climate change liability fund” based on the liability proportion. As to domestic aspect, nations should share the burden of treasury based on the sum of each country’s historical emission. Professor Yeh believes that this responsible treasure method could break through the limits of traditional liability mechanism, lighting the burden of proof in litigation, and it further provides incentives on GHG emission control matter for the nations, thus fulfilling the basic demands of the environmental mechanism for climate change.

Panel speakers Professor Chien-Te Fan and Professor Tsung-fu Chen both agreed with Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh’s contention and further addressed their own thoughts. Professor Fan had pointed out that the traditional evidence law would face challenges under the liability mechanism based on probabilities, making it inevitable for judiciary to enhance the interaction with science. However, we will be facing the issue of “justice.” When our decision process contains the relevance of justice, it complicates the issue. The justice aspect of environmental liability mechanism should also separate and distinguish when dealing with “the justice of distribution”, and “the correction of justice.” Professor Fan suggested that we could think about how we could complement the adjusting, precautious principles, and NAMA (Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions) with climate change environmental liability mechanism. Professor Chen continued with the subject, pointing out the domestic level of designing the system should further consider the issues of how to calculate the historical sum amount, who are the subject of the treasury, and who should be subsidized in the related field. As to the international level of issues, we should consider the execution and administration of the said matter.

Panel speaker Associate Professor Wen-Chen Chang agreed with Professor Yeh’s contentions, and she further pointed out that in order to obtain justice, the treasury which came from the calculation based on the liability portion of historical emission instead from the allocation of the budget, would come closer in avoiding the situation that the government subsidizes on large entities, making the individual taxpayers pay for the bill. However, Associate Professor Chang also pointed out the traditional method of individual litigation of climate change cases still has its values, since we could find the one to be responsible, carrying out the grounding values of justice.

Date: May 12, 2012

PLES has hosted the second seminar of “Responding Strategies of Law and Policy - Sustainable Environmental Regulations under Climate Change” at Multimedia Room of Tsai Lecture Hall on May 12, 2012.

Professor Jiunn-rong Yeh represented PLES, reviewing the Taiwanese government’s climate change responding strategies in three major categories - “organization, policy and legislation.” Professor Yeh concluded that the Taiwanese government’s climate change responding strategies were “increasingly disordered” and revealing the “phenomenon of emptiness.”

On the organization part, the current climate change responding strategies were mostly not systematically distributed by its tasks but randomly scattered in different departments. It lacks a thorough plan; for example, the emission reduction and adjustment were under different organizations, causing separation of the policies. The climate change issues needs a thorough deliberation and it needs to have access to diverse resources. It should be vigorously emphasized on the importance of administration. Thus, we should enhance the power of each department (e.g. the department of environmental resources); we should establish a mechanism of a multi-disciplinary department for climate change policy coordination and adjustment bureau under Executive Yuan through legislation; with the Minister of State of specific duty as coordinator, helping the Premier of Executive Yuan to gather chief executors of various departments in organizing climate change policy.

On the policy aspect, although the government had come up with various plans and policies, these policies tended to become mere slogans, or were touching only the margins of the issues. Furthermore, the policies lacked for a vigorous and overall planning of policies and projects. Currently, the target of GHG emission reduction is still unclear, and the procession of adjustment guidelines was merely the accumulations from scholars, ascribing the approaching method of international participation to institutional agents. We believed the government should design a comprehensive blueprint and progression for climate change policy instead of stopping at the spot where the government repetitively runs the slogan of “Energy Saving and Carbon Reduction.” The direction of the policy should be based on the consensus of citizens and societies, establishing a specific emission target and examining thoroughly the overall adjustment mechanism of climate change. The government officials should dedicate more on the subject, and cannot just depend on individual research projects. As opposed to international connection, we must be clear as to the purpose and strategies of international involvement, and collectively considered with domestic policy.

On the legislation part, the current movement of legislation was not only scattered but in delay, and it tended to incline towards the imbalance of energy and industries, ignoring the core issues thus separating with the current system. The government should work with the policy blueprint we mentioned, and they should come up with a comprehensive legislative framework in response to climate change, working determinedly towards the continued legislation in a planned way. The specific and individual legislation should deal with core issues of emission reduction and adjustment, making progress with the current environmental effect assessment, and current legal system such as Air Pollution Control Act, Disaster Prevention and Protection Act, and Environmental Liability Act, et cetera, providing a comprehensive legal foundation in legislation in response to climate change.

Overall checking up on Taiwan’s responding strategies on organization, policy and legislation, the current projects seemed diverse, however, they were mostly scattered and loose, without a comprehensive and deep deliberation. These policies did not work as an effective and sound foundation of the system, thus we do not see the ambition and strong efforts of the government. We hope that the discussion brought up today could give us a new direction, and that the government can achieve a more grounding, comprehensive and mature undertaking regarding climate change issues.

To strengthen the understanding of international climate change legislation, policy and judicial decisions, PLES has decided to publish newsletter, “Climate Change Policy and Law,” analyzing the most updated progress of international climate change policy and law. The first issue of our newsletter has been published on April 14, 2012. You are welcome to subscribe! Meanwhile, newsletters are available on PLES website as well.

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