Keeping to our commitments : does the Climate Action Act provide the adequate legal framework for Malta to implement its obligations on climate action?

Abstract

Climate change is a global threat with implications extending beyond the environmental sphere, thereby affecting aspects of one’s social, political and economic life. Consequently, effort has been made to subject climate change to a wide array of legislative and regulatory initiatives both at an international, EU and national level. Malta’s first overarching legal framework on climate law, the Climate Action Act, was enacted in July 2015. It forms part of a larger trend of countries seeking to enact flagship legislation, with the UK Climate Change Act (2008) taking lead. This term paper seeks to answer two connecting research questions. Firstly, to identify which are the current legal climate change obligations Malta, as EU Member State and party to international agreements such as the UNFCCC, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement has committed to fulfilling. Secondly, whether the Climate Action Act (2015) addresses in an effective manner such obligations by providing the adequate legal framework for their attainment. This term paper argues that from a legal perspective, an overarching legal framework is essential for mainstreaming the current applicable laws relating to climate change, thereby creating a clear and coherent institutional and legal structure. However, although the Act seeks to streamline climate policy making, the term paper concludes that the overall effectiveness of the Act in practice depends further on how it will continue to be implemented. Such implementation is in turn dependent on a series of factors, including most notably administrative goodwill of the institutions and public authorities concerned as well as a mechanism of efficient financial flows.