Lesson 4: Sustainable Development Law and Climate Change

Lesson 4: Sustainable Development and Climate Change

It is well recognized that the climate change phenomenon has never been just an ‘environmental’ issue, as traditionally conceived. As a consequence, the ‘Climate Change Regime,’ from the outset, had a breadth and a contextual richness that went far beyond international environmental law stricto sensu. And the Climate Change Regime does not simply refer to the 1992 UN Framework Convention, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and the work of the subordinate bodies established thereunder, either. To construe it in this way would be a gross simplification of the developing polity on climate change, and would also ignore the variety and complexity of the interactions and issues that permeate the climate change agenda. Rather, the Climate Change Regime consists of many official, semi‑official and non-official commercial, scientific and ‘public-interest’ communities that interact with and seek to influence the legal and political developments. It includes scientific cooperation bodies, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), whose reports have proved an increasingly scientific basis for international action, as well as important NGOs and aboriginal communities who efforts to seek stronger commitments from sometimes recalcitrant governments and companies and engage in monitoring have been invaluable in developing international and domestic law on climate change.

Lesson 4: Sustainable Development and Climate Change

Climate change is one of the core areas of the emerging international and national law on sustainable development. The preamble to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change affirms that “responses to climate change should be coordinated with social and economic development in an integrated manner with a view to avoiding adverse impacts on the latter, taking into full account the legitimate priority needs of developing countries for the achievement of sustained economic growth and the eradication of poverty.” Some have even gone so far as to say that the international response to climate change, along with the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, affirms “the place of ‘sustainable development’ in international law.”



Lesson 4: Sustainable Development and Climate Change
Three general observations can be made about international and national efforts to address climate change through the development of sustainable development law.



Lesson 4: Sustainable Development and Climate Change
First, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change represents one of the most important attempts to balance between the serious concerns of different groups of developed and developing countries, with regards to the economic development strategies and industries of them all. This is particularly important in the treaty negotiations and continued efforts to refine the treaty, since the negotiations embraces both Northern and Southern concerns in a delicate balance, giving neither undue pre‑eminence to the global over the regional, national or local, nor ignoring the magnitude of the global problem. The Convention encourages continuing dialogue between and within developed and developing states and seeks to promote active negotiations between the parties. It involves differentiated moral and legal obligations on the countries party to the treaty. In addition, at a more substantive level, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change represents evidence of the importance, if not legal necessity, of adopting a more integrated approach to international issues. Most may not want to go as far as former Vice-President Weeramantry in his separate opinion in Gabcikovo-Nagymaros (1997), where he puts forward his idea of sustainable development acting almost as a legal bridge between the right to development and the right to environmental protection, but nevertheless most would accept the emerging normative significance of Principle 4 of the Rio Declaration in this regard. As Principle 4 notes, “environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it.” Integration is at the heart of sustainable development and, as this chapter will make clear, it may be sustainable development’s most important contribution to the legal