我国气候变化立法的缺陷及其对策分析

我国气候变化立法存在着一些较为明显的缺陷,这在一定程度上制约着我国温室气体排放控制战略的实施。目前,气候变化问题已经成为威胁人类生存和发展的一大国际环境问题。温室气体的排放控制战略是《气候变化框架公约》所确立的应对气候变化问题的根本举措。我国应当按照《气候变化框架公约》和《京都议定书》的法律要求,健全和完善气候变化立法以进一步控制温室气体的排放量,从而为全球气候变化问题的应对做出更大的贡献。     

气候保护的实施困境

全球的气候变化对人类未来的发展造成严重的影响,对于日益严重的气候问题,世界各国做出了一系列的努力。2013年11月11日,《联合国气候变化框架公约》缔约方会议在波兰首都华沙举行,这是各国召开的第19次气候大会。从19次联合国气候变化大会的发展中,虽然可以看到世界各国对于气候环境保护方面的所做的努力和成果,但气候环境保护的进程相当缓慢,发达国家和发展中国家对于减排措施、标准等尚未达到共识,气候保护存在实施困境。因此,应从中找到实施困境的核心问题,积极推动各国协调合作,为解决日益恶化的国际环境问题提供必要的建议和措施。     

后京都时代应对气候变化的国际合作

随着《京都议定书》的效力即将到期,后京都时代的来临,各国急需通过谈判确定后京都时代中采用的减排合作模式。本文着重分析了后京都时代应对气候变化的国际合作中所出现的重要问题以及进行国际合作时所采取的方式。     

德班平台气候谈判中我国面临的减排挑战

德班平台的正式启动是国际气候谈判的重大成果,同时开启了2020年后国际减排法律制度构建的进程。气候正义是一个国家采取气候政策的正当性的评价尺度,也是进行国际合作的基础。气候正义主要是一种社会正义和法律正义,包括分配正义与矫正正义。对于中国而言,体现正义价值的国际减排法律制度应该建立在《联合国气候变化框架公约》基础之上,并应以"共同但有区别责任"原则为基石,以"减缓"、"适应"、"资金"、"技术"为支柱。为在德班平台气候谈判中争取主动,中国可考虑适当调整原有谈判立场。同时,中国宜通过"命令控制型"和"市场引导型"两种模式来落实体现气候正义的国内减排法律规制。     

从规制到引领:欧盟低碳发展的法律行动

一、启动实施欧洲气候变化计划欧盟是应对全球气候变化的倡导者与先行者。欧盟自1993年成立起就对全球气候变化问题给予了特别关注,在各成员国纷纷提出本国应对气候变化的政策时,欧盟层面也开始协调成员国政策,统一行动。从20世纪末开始,欧盟气候变化政策围绕《京都议定书》的不同发展阶段不断向前推进。1997年12月,联合国在日本京都召开第三次缔约方会议,达成了《京都议定书》。欧盟在议定书上所承担的减排目标是2012年相对1990年基准减排8%。欧盟于1998     

自由贸易协定:提升我国全球气候治理制度性话语权的新路径

我国要引导气候变化国际合作,就应该提升在全球气候治理体系的制度性话语权。在《巴黎协定》之后,"自下而上"的UNFCCC外制度将快速发展,我国的气候话语权建设也不应只局限于UNFCCC,而应适时拓展。缘起于发达国家话语需要的自由贸易协定新实践给我们提供了一条新思路。欧盟在此方面进行了积极有效的探索。自由贸易协定作为一种"自下而上"的治理路径,符合全球气候治理的发展方向,《巴黎协定》的若干新规定也为其发展提供了制度背书。虑及我国在气候和贸易问题上所具有的实际影响力,适时将气候议题引入我国的自由贸易协定,有助于提升我国在气候领域的制度性话语权。在具体内容的构建方面,应注意维护联合国制度的核心地位,促进低碳产品和技术贸易的自由化,强化气候领域的环境合作,有效提升我国对国际碳市场的话语力量。     

CEPA框架下内地与港澳环境保护合作的法律问题思考

我国内地与港澳之间进行环境保护合作具有深刻的国际和国内背景,CEPA协议的深入实施为三地进行环境保护方面的合作创造了良好的契机,同时也显露出三地在环境保护合作过程中于服务贸易、货物贸易及合作投资方面存在的法律问题。提出从处理好自由贸易与可持续发展的关系、以环境保护科技产业合作带动三地环境保护合作、注重环境保护合作实现方式上与CEPA的良性结合等方面推动内地的环境保护和完善CEPA下内地与港澳的环境保护合作的法律制度的建议。     

TPP最终文本之TRIPS-PLUS条款探究

2015年11月5日,《跨太平洋伙伴关系协定》(TPP)最终文本对外公布,备受关注的知识产权章节在客体范围、权利保护期限、知识产权执法、司法力度等标准上明显超越了TRIPS以及诸多FTA的规定,具有TRIPS-PLUS条款的性质.然而TPP的高标准并非我国未来知识产权事业发展的障碍.我国应当在考虑国情和公共利益的基础上,内化改革、外促合作,争取在知识产权国际谈判中的话语权,客观积极地应对TPP之TRIPS-PLUS条款,以免受发达国家牵制而陷入被动.     

论大流行病条约谈判中的主要法律问题及其应对

新冠疫情大流行病引发了全球卫生治理赤字的反思,通过国际法加强各国合作迫在眉睫。虽然目前已经有PHEIC制度应对大流行病等突发性公共卫生事件,但制度不足以应对全球性大流行,WHO及其成员国希望重新缔结一项大流行病条约。目前该条约正在谈判过程中,谈判组面临着大流行病条约与《国际卫生条例》关系的处理、缔约模式的确定、大流行病界定权的归属及争端解决机制构建等法律问题。为解决以上问题,应该区分大流行病条约和《国际卫生条例》的职能,采用软硬兼备的缔约模式,建立公开透明的大流行病确定机制,改革WHO的机构职能,建立有效的争端解决机制。     

气候变化救济的审思与突破：以人权法为视角的展开

全球气候变暖不仅直接触发了环境危机,更间接地威胁到人类所享有的各项基本人权。在国际气候变化机制关于损害赔偿的规定尚处于行为义务的前提下,在《巴黎协定》纳入人权视角后,随着气候变化诉讼的发展,已经挖掘出人权法体系在气候变化救济方面所具有的巨大潜力。2018年,联合国人权事务委员会通过《关于生命权的一般性意见》,将气候变化与生命权进行对接,不仅回应了《巴黎协定》对于人权的关注,更验证了在人权法语境下为气候变化提供救济不失为一项可行性选择。尽管该视角仍然面临一些待解问题,但却可以与国际气候变化机制互为补充,为气候变化救济带来另一个维度的曙光。     

中国在国际气候谈判中面临的新挑战及其应对

德班平台建立后,国际气候谈判由“双轨制”变为单轨,发达国家和发展中国家自此将在一个共同的平台上就未来国际气候机制展开谈判,过去相对稳定的国际气候谈判格局发生演变.在这种情况下,中国面临着发展中国家身份的集体认同的变化,以及中国所一贯坚持的“共同但有区别的责任”原则的重新解读,这些变化将给中国的身份定位及国家利益带来影响.因此,中国一方面要把握在未来国际气候机制制定中的话语权,积极参与全球气候治理体系的改革与建构,使其适应中国国内中长期发展目标;另一方面也要承担相应的减排责任,做负责任的大国,为全球气候治理贡献力量.     

气候变化背景下国际投资规则的发展趋势及我国对策研究

传统国际投资条约与应对气候变化存在一些矛盾和冲突,因此应实现国际投资条约与气候变化应对条约之间的衔接,兼顾投资自由化与政府管制.要实现这一目标,最佳方式是通过改变国际投资条约以顺应应对气候变化的低碳运动,改变国际投资条约将促进和保护投资作为唯一重心的现状,并采纳环境保护等其他领域的国际法规则.近年来国际投资领域呈现可持续发展的投资政策趋势.目前一些投资保护协定范本和新签订的双边和区域性投资协定已经纳入并不断完善环境保护等有关东道国管制外资内容的条款,逐步实现投资者利益与东道国利益保护的平衡.我国对现有国际投资条约进行调整、修订以及新投资条约的谈判,应考虑国际投资条约的这一发展趋势,以顺应国际投资的可持续发展政策.     

Bounded rationality and social interaction in negotiating a climate agreement

An agreement on climate change mitigation hinges on large-scale international cooperation. Rational agents are supposed to consider the cost and benefits of cooperation, which then determine their negotiation positions. Behavioral economics provides experimental evidence that decision-making in negotiation-like situations is influenced by systematic cognitive biases and social interaction. In this paper, we examine the impact of bounded rationality and social preferences on bargaining in international climate negotiations and illustrate how particular deviations from full rationality affect the incentives to cooperate. Of special interest are fairness preferences for burden-sharing rules and behavioral responses to different framings of climate change and policy, as well as implications of these for communication about climate change. The analysis will further address different levels of representation, including individual citizens, politicians, experts, and (professional) negotiators. The consequences of the most prominent nonstandard preferences and biases for negotiating a climate treaty are assessed, and specific strategies to foster cooperation are suggested.     

Exploring the agency of Africa in climate change negotiations: the case of REDD+

Emerging climate change regimes, such as the mechanism for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD+), are increasingly aiming to engage developing countries such as those in Africa, in sustainable development through carbon markets. The contribution of African countries to global climate negotiations determines how compatible the negotiated rules could be with the existing socioeconomic and policy circumstances of African countries. The aim of this paper is to explore the agency of Africa (African States) in the global climate change negotiations and discuss possible implications for implementing these rules using REDD+ as a case study. Drawing on document analysis and semi-structured expert interviews, our findings suggest that although African countries are extensively involved in the implementation of REDD+ interventions, the continent has a weak agency on the design of the global REDD+ architecture. This weak agency results from a number of factors including the inability of African countries to send large and diverse delegations to the negotiations as well lack of capacity to generate and transmit research evidence to the global platform. African countries also perceive themselves as victims of climate change who should be eligible for support rather than sources of technological solutions. Again, Africa’s position is fragmented across negotiation coalitions which weakens the continent's collective influence on the REDD+ agenda. This paper discusses a number of implementation deficits which could result from this weak agency. These include concerns about implementation capacity and a potential lack of coherence between REDD+ rules and existing policies in African countries. These findings call for a rethink of pathways to enhancing Africa’s strategies in engaging in multilateral climate change negotiations, especially if climate change regimes specifically targeted at developing countries are to be effective.     

The role of the G20 in governing the climate change regime

A wide array of institutions governing climate change has proliferated over the past years, influencing the rule-makings of the regime. One of them is the G20. When G20 leaders around the world convened in London to restore global economies, they stressed the importance of a ‘resilient, sustainable, and green recovery’ and reaffirmed their commitments to address climate change. This was followed by their agreement on phasing out inefficient fossil fuel energy subsidies over the medium term in Pittsburgh. The ‘coexistence of narrow regimes in the same issue-area’ could be described as ‘regime complexes’, which enable countries to adapt more readily, particularly when adaptation requires complex changes in norms and behavior. Given that responses to climate change would require changes in the domestic politics of different countries at different levels, loosely integrated institutions of regime complexes could be more advantageous for countries to adapt and in engaging with developing countries. This paper demonstrates that the G20’s highly informal institutional setup as well as its flexible cooperation tools could enable its members to customize their policies and better engage with third-party countries. In addition, the G20 group could collectively influence other key countries to reach an agreement on some of the key climate change–related issues, thereby facilitating the United Nations process of climate change.     

Climate Change Policies, Energy Security and Carbon Dependency Trade-offs for the European Union in the Longer Term

Energy policy in the European Union (EU) faces two major challenges. The first challenge is posed by EUs commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere in the context of the international agreement on climate change. The second challenge is to keep ensuring European security of energy supply, while its dependency on external sources of energy is projected to increase. In this paper, two long-term alternative climate change policy scenarios for Europe are examined. In the first scenario, EU reduces carbon dioxide emissions by domestic measures; in the second scenario EU maximizes cooperation with the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Impacts on carbon flows between the EU and FSU and on the external energy dependency of the EU are assessed with an applied general equilibrium model, GTAP-E, whose set of energy commodities is expanded with combustible biomass as a renewable and carbon-neutral energy commodity. The results show that there is a trade-off between economic efficiency, energy security and carbon dependency for the EU. The FSU would unambiguously prefer cooperation.     

气候变化法律应对实证分析——从国际公约到国内法的转化

气候变化问题的全球性决定了构建应对气候变化对策必须集合各领域的通力合作的,法律应对机制是必不可少。以往,我们常常将关注点放在气候变化国际法律制度领域的基本问题研究上,而未真正对气候变化国际法律制度进行认真剖析,找出其目前和未来发展阶段的不足之处;更没有在国际实证分析的基础上,结合我国目前的实际情况,做出完整的法律构架,实现国际法的国内法转化,使气候变化的应对能真正落到实处,毕竟《京都议定书》的实现需要各国知之践行;尽管有必要强调共同但区别原则,但是中国作为负责任的大国,有必要提升“道义责任理念”,从自身内部法律实践做起,为温室气体的减排落实真正尽一份力。     

Reinforcement of multilevel governance dynamics: creating momentum for increasing ambitions in international climate negotiations

Compared to the disappointment of the 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, the results of the recent Conferences of the Parties can be regarded as positive progress. This was made possible due to lesson drawing and learning among states. Recent evidence from the UNFCCC negotiations suggests that countries began to reflect on the “Copenhagen experience.” They are setting up domestic climate legislation in the form of low carbon development plans and share their knowledge and experiences in the international climate change negotiations. Country representatives engage in workshops and roundtables to showcase their mitigation plans and low carbon development initiatives, thereby raising ambitions and creating group pressure on other countries. This article examines how the diffusion of policies across countries is motivated and facilitated by knowledge transfer and learning within multilevel-reinforcing governance dynamics between the domestic level and international negotiations. It analyzes how changes in the negotiation setting from confrontational formal negotiations to a more open forum and bottom-up pledge-and-review process, in combination with a positively framed win–win low carbon economic development narrative resulted in the diffusion of climate policies across developed and developing countries. Communicating these climate initiatives on the national level has shifted the debate. Countries emphasize less the win–lose perspective of economic costs and sacrifice. Thus, they focus less on the question of who should reduce emissions’, but identify co-benefits instead. The institutionalized knowledge sharing within the UNFCCC is also creating positive competitive dynamics among countries to increase their ambition and to take on a leadership role. This shift in the negotiations carries potential for a more ambitious aggregate negotiation outcome and opens up a window of opportunity.     

Technology investment, bargaining, and international environmental agreements

If countries are to engage in international environmental cooperation, they must bargain over the distribution of gains. When future bargaining over pollution abatement is expected, how should a country decide on public technology investments to reduce the domestic cost of pollution abatement? I find that while countries tend to underinvest because they fail to internalize the global benefits of new technology, the magnitude of the problem depends on a country’s bargaining power. Powerful countries underinvest less frequently, because they expect to reap most of the global benefits from new technology in the international negotiations. I also investigate the effectiveness of a simple reciprocal technology agreement. I find that it can help solve the underinvestment problem, and this beneficial effect is particularly pronounced in the case of powerful countries. These findings imply that changing the bargaining protocol on climate change to the benefit of powerful countries may help secure the necessary technology investments.     

The Climate Change Regime: An Enviro-Economic Problem and International Administrative Law in the Making

The climate change problem, or global warming, has gained a prominent place on the international political agenda, since the mid-1980s, when it first attracted political attention. The problem was initially perceived mainly as an environmental problem that could be resolved by technological solutions, its current perception, this essay argues, is best characterized as that of an enviro-economic problem. A perception that is exemplified by the ongoing negotiations for the development of economic mechanisms to tackle the problem. The climate change arena is a complex one, involving dichotomies between developed and developing countries, between fossil fuel producing and importing countries and between small island developing states and other states. This essay outlines the interests that play a role in the climate change negotiations and discusses the international climate change regime as contained in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol. It concludes that the climate change negotiations are complicated by the fact that the negotiators, in addition to developing new substantive rules for a complex problem, are involved in developing new systemic rules for the international legal system. These new systemic rules have more in common with rules of national systems of public or administrative law than with traditional rules of international law, which have many similarities with national systems of contract law.