The Riigikogu discussed the impacts of climate change on the legal space and economy
Today the Riigikogu discussed the impacts of climate change on the Estonian legal space and economy as a matter of significant national importance on the initiative of the Environment Committee.
According to Chairman of the Environment Committee Igor Taro, the discussion was motivated by the preparation of the Climate Resilient Economy Act, but it was not limited to that. “Addressing the climate crisis and economic adaptation will be our most important challenge in the near future, as its impact will be very long-lasting and extensive. Does the climate even need our legislation? Probably not. In the long term, the planet can probably do without us, but human life here will become extremely uncomfortable or even unbearable,” he said.
According to him, with the Climate Resilient Economy Bill, it is only possible to delineate the framework within which the society must set its long-term plan in order to reach a balance point in the economy by 2050 where no additional damage to the environment occurs or it can be mitigated to a significant extent. “Where exactly to draw the boundaries leading to the goal? This will be one of the most important debate topics in the parliament in the coming months. All in all, the decisions taken in the course of the debate on this Bill will start to have an impact on the daily life of all people as early as the second half of this decade, and more so as time goes on,” he said.
According to Taro, by the year 2050, a climate-neutral economy will be like the North Pole, according to which similar legislation will take direction not only in Estonia, but also in other countries. “More than 190 countries around the world have ratified or signed the Paris Climate Agreement. In essence, it is a global consensus on which the European Union also builds its environmental and economic policy,” he said.
In his report, Velle Toll, Associate Professor in Climate Physics at the Institute of Physics of the Faculty of Science and Technology of the University of Tartu, stressed that climate change was an existential threat to humanity. “Human civilization has evolved under the conditions of a stable climate, and now we have upset that balance. The last year has already been one and a half degrees warmer compared to the pre-industrial era, which is indeed the most ambitious goal of the Paris climate agreement. And this one and a half degrees, this means a huge amount of added energy to the climate system, which has brought about extreme weather, floods, heat waves, droughts, all of which have caused huge economic damage and human suffering. Climate change is already here, it is not something that will happen somewhere in the distant future,” he said.
According to him, international climate policy has been of great benefit. “Yes, emissions are still increasing today, but within this decade we will probably reach a situation where global emissions will slowly start to decrease. This is very positive. But unfortunately, all this is not enough to prevent dangerous climate change,” Toll said. He added that we needed to reach a situation where human activity was no longer adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, at which point global warming would stop. “If today’s trends continue, up to three degrees of global warming can be expected by the end of the century, and it will be a vastly different world from the one we live in today.”
According to Toll, very often only climate change mitigation is talked about. “Reducing emissions is crucial, but it is equally important to adapt to climate change so that we are better prepared for inevitable climate change,” he said. He noted that it was necessary to adapt to changes both when creating infrastructure and, for example, in planning. “And this should be done in advance, not when they are here, but we need to analyse today what these climate conditions will be like in the future and how it will affect our life here in Estonia.”
According to him, there is also a lot in common between mitigation activities and adaptation activities. In order for these activities to be effective, we need to do them in a research-based and cooperative way, so that there is close cooperation between the state, local governments and businesses and so that all Estonian people are involved in this process,” Toll said. According to him, there are many engineering and technical solutions and actions that are necessary to reduce the harmful effects. “However, solving the problem of climate change also requires fundamental social and economic change,” he emphasized.
Maia-Liisa Anton, Coordinator at the Estonian Council of Environmental NGOs, said before the Riigikogu that the main cause of anthropogenic climate change was the burning of fossil fuels for energy, and it was clear that the long-term damages of climate change to the environment, people and the economy outweighed the benefits of fossil fuels. “It is time for us to move on. And the basic solutions are known: transition to renewable energy, economical use of resources and circular economy,” she said. She added that several factors prevented changes from being made, including the insufficient implementation of environmental protection principles.
According to her, it is necessary to jointly review how to change the legal framework so that natural resources, which are our common wealth, are used sparingly. According to her, the country also needs a plan on how to act in the coming decades to mitigate environmental crises in order to protect people. “An important part of this plan must be the adoption of a strong and science-based Climate Act that would ensure legal clarity and protect people and nature from climate change. The Climate Act will also have to ensure businesses certainty about the direction we are taking as a society,” Anton said. She expressed regret that the targets proposed in the Bill were significantly weaker than the climate targets currently in force in Estonia, although in fact Estonia would be able to reduce emissions faster.
In her report, Kai Realo, Chair of the Council of the Estonian Employers’ Confederation and Chair of the Management Board of Ragn Sells Ltd, addressed the impact of climate change on the economy, highlighting, among other things, the depletion of resources, changes in demand and preferences, the increase in energy consumption, rising energy costs, localisation of production and consumption, the growth of bureaucracy and the increase of inequality in society.
Speaking about the Climate Resilient Economy Bill, Realo said that, in the opinion of businesses, the feasibility of the changes and what lied ahead for the business sector had not been sufficiently thought through. According to her, the socio-economic effects and the effects on the state’s tax revenues resulting from the changes should be assessed.
“And the most important thing from our point of view would be to emphasise that, in setting all these targets, Estonian entrepreneurs expect that these targets will be set on a similar basis and at a similar pace in the European Union, and that Estonian entrepreneurs will not be placed in an unequal situation with their competitors as a result of these targets, so that we would still be able to maintain the competitiveness of the Estonian economy and Estonian entrepreneurship,” she said.
Rain Epler, Anti Poolamets and Siim Pohlak from the Estonian Conservative People’s Party Group, Tiit Maran and Anti Allas from the Social Democratic Party Group, Mart Maastik and Urmas Reinsalu from Isamaa Parliamentary Group, Hanah Lahe from the Reform Party Group and Igor Taro from Estonia 200 Parliamentary Group took the floor during the debate. Non-attached Member of the Riigikogu Züleyxa Izmailova also made a speech.
Photos (Merje Meisalu / Chancellery of the Riigikogu)
Verbatim record of the sitting (in Estonian)
Video recording will be available to watch later on the Riigikogu YouTube channel.
Riigikogu Press Service
Karin Kangro
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