The Enforcement Service is able to impose sanctions, such as suspending eligibility to participate in international emissions trading. [45] The introduction of an emissions trading scheme at the federal level will be an important step in the development of climate change legislation in Australia and will contribute significantly to the country`s compliance with its international emission reduction commitments. However, it would be dangerous to see a national emissions trading scheme as the end of national climate change regulation. [113] First, the establishment of an Emissions Trading Scheme requires decisions on a number of related issues such as the role of renewable energy policy (e.g. the MRET requested above) and adequate energy infrastructure (e.g. whether Australia should adopt nuclear energy). In addition, it is generally accepted in the literature on market mechanisms that their institution generally rests on a solid foundation of other laws and regulations and therefore functions less as a free market than as a “legally regulated commodification”. [114] In the federal context, this means that new legislation is needed for emissions reporting, verification and compliance issues, as well as to assess the relationship between climate action and existing environmental legislation. Unlike regional, national or international climate protection regulatory initiatives that address the issue of reducing or reducing emissions, the direction of action at the local level tends to be very different.
[205] Although mitigation is crucial to reducing persistent greenhouse gas pollution, scientific research confirms that certain levels of climate change are already inevitable[206], making adaptation measures “both urgent and imperative”. [207] Adaptation is an issue that is of course appropriate to be considered at the local level, because – although the effects of climate change are widely felt – the benefits of adaptation measures tend to be quite local (for example, building a dike on a particular beach to reduce coastal erosion due to sea level rise). In addition, a high degree of variability in the manifestation of impacts in different regions, even within the same country or state, argues for tailor-made local responses. Therefore, climate change adaptation is becoming an important part of the planning and decision-making processes of local governments in Australia as well as companies affected by these processes, such as development agencies, property developers, financiers and insurers. Cases like Walker and Gippsland Coastal Board are still rare and far away, and the need to plan and develop adaptation to climate change has certainly not been accepted by all local governments and planning agencies. Nevertheless, the topicality of global warming issues and the consolidation of scientific data on future impacts mean that climate change considerations are increasingly seen as relevant, if not essential, to local authorities` environmental assessment processes. The emerging trend to address climate change risks in the broader area of ESD is also important given the key role that ESD plays in environmental planning and legislation. As McDonald notes, the following sections of the article postulate four categories of challenges that need to be addressed in the future development of a legal framework to address the problem of the next generation of climate change. [332] The aim is to pave the way for the difficult scientific and policy debates that lie ahead for climate protection law.
The first challenges are those of internationalization, which are associated with the global scale of the climate change problem and the difficulties in agreeing on future international climate action. The second challenge concerns issues of participation and how the wide range of interests involved in the field of climate change can be taken into account (and reconciled when those interests are in conflict). The third set of challenges stems from the imperative of integrated environmental management inherent in the problem of climate change. This includes not only the integration of governance systems (e.g., federal and state governments), but also disciplines (e.g., law and science) and different environmental components (e.g., water, biodiversity, and greenhouse gas pollution).
