Taiwan should expedite the passage of two bills to address climate change and ocean conservation, the Environmental Justice Foundation and Greenpeace said yesterday in a joint statement.
“We also ask lawmakers to include input from indigenous people when they deliberate over the proposed ‘climate change adaptation act’ and ‘ocean conservation act,’ as appropriate policies could only be delivered by considering how climate change poses different challenges to different ethnic groups,” the groups said.
A “human rights impact assessment mechanism” should be in all subsequent legislative reviews of the climate change adaptation bill, they added.
Photo: CNA
The groups urged lawmakers to pass the bills and highlighted the importance of fighting climate injustice as the world observes World Oceans Day today.
Last month, lawmakers from six legislative committees jointly reviewed the climate change adaptation bill, and the legislature’s Internal Administration Committee on May 16 reviewed the ocean conservation draft act.
“We believe that lawmakers still ignored nature-based solutions when they deliberated over the climate change adaptation draft act. Their discussions over the ocean conservation draft also lacked the understanding of how protecting and recovering the marine ecosystem can stabilize the climate as well,” the groups said.
The UN Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) stated in its Sixth Assessment Report on Climate Change that more than 30 percent of the Earth’s area needs to be protected to maintain the important role of natural ecosystems in climate resilience, the groups said.
The Glasgow Climate Pact, produced at last year’s COP26 summit on climate change, noted “the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including forests, oceans and the cryosphere, and protecting biodiversity,” they said.
A study by the US Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration showed that coastal blue carbon ecosystems are three to five times more efficient in carbon sequestration than tropical forests, and contribute significantly to removing carbon from the atmosphere, the groups said.
Over the past few years, countries worldwide have increasingly recognized the importance of the ocean as a climate solution, they said.
Sixty countries, including South Korea and Singapore, have included protection of marine ecosystems as a goal to address climate change, the groups said.
“Conserving marine ecosystems is also a necessary measure to prevent carbon emissions. The carbon-absorbing function of seagrass ecosystems, for example, decreases significantly when it is disrupted by human behaviors. Instead, the ecosystems may turn into high-intensity carbon emission sources,” they said.
Offshore wind power or ocean energy might cause even greater carbon emissions and irreversible damage to marine ecosystems if their effects are not scientifically investigated and assessed, they said.
“We believe that the function of oceans to militate and help us adapt to climate change should be recognized in the draft act on climate change, but the mitigation and adaptation to the climate change should be regarded as the goal of marine conservation and restoration in the draft act on ocean conservation,” the groups said.
The Legislative Yuan should pass the ocean conservation bill as soon as possible, which would authorize the government to establish a complete scientific monitoring mechanism for the marine environment, they said.
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