Climate groups file petition with Constitutional Court

Taipei, Jan. 30 (CNA) More than a dozen environmental groups jointly lodged a petition with the Constitutional Court Tuesday, in an effort to push Taiwan's government to take more action on intergenerational climate justice.

Huang Hsin-wen (黃馨雯), an attorney with the Environmental Rights Foundation (ERF), said that although the Climate Change Response Act was passed in 2023, it did not include short and medium-term national periodic regulatory goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The lawmakers also failed to clarify the standards for setting goals before passing responsibility to the Ministry of Environment, she added.

"As the Constitution states that legislators are obligated to protect people's basic rights, we believe that the lawmakers' dereliction of duty has violated the Constitution," Huang said.

The Ministry of Environment, which has been entrusted with enforcing the Act, has also fallen short due to "simply asking the government bodies how much greenhouse gas they were able to reduce rather than telling them how much they should reduce," Huang added.

The ministry has also failed to announce third-stage regulatory goals - which the Act stipulates should be set two years ahead of the beginning of the next five-year stage - by Jan. 1, 2024, she said.

"The goal for the third stage that runs from 2026 to 2030, according to the Act, should have been set in 2024, which we understand means Jan. 1 - but the ministry claimed that the Act could be seen as complying if the goal is set by the end of the year," Huang said.

The first (2016-2020) and second (2021-2025) national periodic regulatory goals, set in January 2018 and September 2021 respectively, called for 2 percent and 10 percent reductions against the GHG amount emitted in the base year of 2005.

While the ministry in charge of setting the goal has so far not made any announcement, the National Development Council did say in December 2022 that the third-stage goal would be a 23-25 percent reduction on GHG emissions from 2005.

The environmental groups slammed the goal for being "far too short on ambition," with Tu You-wen (凃又文), the CEO of the foundation, saying that the unambitious goal would leave future generations with far more climate crises and severe negative impacts.

Tu said that the groups lodged the petition to "count on the judicial branch and resort to judicial remedy when the legislative and executive branches are overly passive in climate actions."

Tuesday's event was also attended by other petitioners, including a farmer from Houli, Taichung, a fisherman from Yunlin, and a resident of Kucapungane Village, which was destroyed by Typhoon Morakot in 2012.

They told of their respective experiences of meeting water shortage, fish behavioral changes, and natural disasters, and called on the government to live up to their responsibilities to combat climate change.

Responding to local media's inquiry at a different event on Tuesday about the groups' petition, Minister of Environment Shieu Fuh-sheng (薛富盛) said discussions on the third-stage goals was progressing as scheduled.

Shieu added that the goals had to be practical and achievable and taking the country's industries' circumstances into consideration.