An environmental protection association has taken legal action to force the Ministry of the Environment to reveal the extent to which it is complying with the measures provided for in the Basic Climate Law.
Since August, the Associação Último Recurso has been requesting information from the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MAE) on the application of the Basic Climate Law and, tired of receiving “unclear” answers, decided to move forward this Wednesday with an action in the Assembly of Lisbon. Administrative and Fiscal Court, the association’s lawyer, Ana Guerra Rosbach, revealed to Lusa.
“In August and September we asked the ministry to give us these documents on the Climate Base Law,” said the lawyer, explaining that the association also filed a complaint with the Commission for Access to Administrative Documents (CADA).
Without “detailed answers” to know where law enforcement stands, Último Recurso took legal action to access 18 documents, ranging from carbon budgets to the status of sectoral carbon emissions reduction goals. greenhouse gases.
The current status of the review of the hydrocarbon legal regime or the sectoral climate change mitigation plans are other of the requests included in the action, to which Lusa had access.
According to Ana Guerra Rosbach, “most of the measures provided for in the Law are already in non-compliance”, using as an example the review of the legal regime for hydrocarbons, which should have occurred in February 2023.
Asked about the status of this diploma, the ministry limited itself to saying that the process was in the “development phase, without providing specific data on deadlines, allocation of resources or progress made,” the jurist recalled, highlighting that the deadlines defined in the Climate Bases Law are binding.
Ana Guerra highlights that, when the guardianship fails to meet the deadlines, it has to justify the reasons and present the work carried out to try to comply with the law.
“The absence of data impedes public scrutiny and makes it difficult to implement the measures necessary to address the climate emergency,” he added.
The association warns that it is difficult to plan long-term measures without knowing which sectors should be considered priorities for the preparation of Sectoral Plans for Mitigation and Adaptation to Climate Change.
The non-publication of strategic documents, such as carbon budgets for the next five years, “compromises Portugal’s ability to combat climate change and comply with the Paris Agreement,” highlights the association, whose mission is to use legal means to hold accountable those they consider the main contributors to the climate crisis, the NGO explains on its website.
Source: Observadora
