Laws and Policies on Climate Protection: Do the International Climate Protection Regime and New Zealand Provide a Sufficient Legal Framework?

Abstract

In the past decade, climate change has become one of the major global problems. The international community has reacted by introducing two main legal frameworks on climate protection. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Kyoto Protocol have set up a scope of handling climate change and have therefore made it clear to the world that action has to be taken. New Zealand has introduced a number of policies and measures that deal with climate protection, the major policy being the Emissions Trading Scheme. The paper describes and assesses the main developments of the concepts and measures concerning climate change. Hereby, the focus lies on New Zealand’s national obligations to provide climate protection, especially the examination of the Emissions Trading Scheme. The paper concludes by arguing that there exist sufficient international instruments to reduce climate change and that New Zealand provides reasonably good protection on climate. However, there is still much to be done concerning the effectiveness of the Emissions Trading Scheme.