Research On The Legal System Of Low-carbon Economy

Low-carbon economy is the economy embodied the sustainable development idea,the goal of which is to deal with the global greenhouse effect, to lead the world to agood future. Low-carbon economy contains a technical, or a systematic quality, thesystematic legislations of which are great promotions for its development, which arealso the strategic measures for countries to control the greenhouse gases, to restrain theglobal warming, and to help them to step to the low-carbon future. In order to reach thelow-carbon society,creating a systematic measure is a necessity, a low-carbonpromotion measure in which the legislations are the core is not only a demand for thedevelopment of low-carbon economy but the requirement for the government to enactits power for market intervention, which is the remedy for the market limitation.Bearing the premise that low-carbon economy needs regulating by rules, thisdissertation hopes to purify the conception of low-carbon economy, through theexploration of its theoretic basis, comparing of different countries’ legislative practice,to construct the frame of low-carbon legislations, and to make a reasonable consultationfor the perfection of Chinese low-carbon legislations. This paper contains eight chapters,includes the introduction, the text, and the conclusion, the text holds the following sixkey parts:First, the general review of the low-carbon economy. Low-carbon economy isa new form of economy containing the idea of sustainable development, the3Lprinciples (low emission, low consumption of energy, and low pollution), and by way oftechnique innovation, system creation, industry shifting, new energy exploitation, toreach the economic and environment goals. It is a kind of civilization after the primal,agricultural and industrial civilization. It originated from the global warming anddeveloped in the developed countries, its development is under the framework of theinternational convention, affirmed by the national strategy, protected by the legislations.Low-carbon economy is a new economy that leads the nations to a new economicgrowth pattern, forward to a green, clean and sustainable future. The concept oflow-carbon economy not only contains the idea of sustainable development,environment protection and energy safety, but also is an innovation from the ecotypiceconomy, cyclic economy and green economy; they all contain the view of developmentunder the ecological civilization. Second, the analysis on the basic construction of the low-carbon legislations. Thelow-carbon economy involves many areas, holds a great content. Collectively, thelow-carbon economy legislations can be divided into three parts: The legislation ofenergy saving and emission reduction; the legislation of traditional energy substitutionand the carbon control legislation. The legislation of energy saving and emissionreduction aims at promoting the energy ratio, which requires the saving and efficiencyusing of energy, reducing the carbon emission. Legislation of traditional energysubstitution leads to the shifting of the consumption structure of energy, to realize theemission reduction through exploration for the clean, low-carbon sorts of energy. Thecarbon control legislation aims at controlling the greenhouse gas by ways of thelow-carbon techniques. These three parts of legislation cover all of the laws oflow-carbon economy. The legislation of energy saving and emission reduction and thecarbon control legislation have the same purpose trying to prevent the gases fromemitting into the air, the legislation of traditional energy substitution aims at promotingthe exploration for the clean and low-carbon energy in order to substitute the traditionalfossil energy. The above three kinds of respectively independent legislations constructthe protective system for low-carbon economy.Third, the enlightenment of the construction of low-carbon legislations abroad. Thelow-carbon economy created from the international conventions, which is the measurefor the developed countries to reduce the emission of CO2according to the internationalconvention. In order to construct the system of low-carbon legislations,the UnitedKingdom established the national low-carbon strategy first, and accordingly establishedthe basic law of low-carbon economy accompanied by the relatively legislations.Australia just chooses the emission reduction as the breakthrough to constitute its ownlegislations, and forms a set of laws concerning “carbon capture and storage”, creatingthe “rights of carbon access” and the “rights of carbon property”. The U.S. emphasizesthe creation and amendment of laws, and forms a set of low-carbon legislations;moreover, it creates collectively a set of low-carbon bills to promote the whole nation’slow-carbon economy. Japanese is a nation emphasizing the protection of environmenthistorically, it has formed a set of environmental laws before it decides to create thelow-carbon society, after that, Japanese makes a great amendment for its formerlegislations and creates the new laws, and forms a complete set of low-carbonlegislations which contains the basic law, the comprehensive laws and the regulationsand rules. Forth, the necessity and possibility to construct the legal system of low-carboneconomy in China. The necessity to construct the legal system of low-carboneconomy is that the international rules need to be transferred as the nationalrules,and that the low-carbon economy embodies the idea that the government hasthe power to intervene the market, and the low-carbon economy itself calls for thegovernment intervention, which needs the laws to regulate the boundary of thegovernmental intervention. The possibility to construct the legal system oflow-carbon economy is that there is a certain kind of legal basis, and has the foreignlegislations to be borrowed, the condition to construct the legal system of lowcarbon economy has come into being.Fifth, the deficiency of the low-carbon economy legislations in China. Recentyears, the government of China emphasizes the energy saving and emission reduction,and comes out with a set of policies and laws to promote the energy efficiency,low-carbon legal system has appeared more and more clear, but undoubtedly, it is far tobe perfected. The low-carbon economy hasn’t to be affirmed as a national strategy,which disturbs the formation of the basic law of low-carbon economy, moreover, thebasic law and some professional laws in the energy area are still in vacancy, the currentlaws still have their great limitations.Sixth, the reflection of building and perfecting the China’s low-carbon legislations.In order to perfect the legislations in China, we should have a clear idea to thelow-carbon development, and select a reasonable systematic protection way, design alegal system of low-carbon economy in reason; emphasize the employment andsupervising of the laws. Particularly speaking, we should establish the national strategyforwards to the low-carbon economy, and try to create the act of low-carbon Economy,quicken the step of amendment of current laws, introducing the notion and terms oflow-carbon economy into them, perfect the laws in the area of energy, and pay muchattention to the problems such as how to protect the national interests during the processof regulating the low-carbon economy by legislations; how to balance the powerbetween the laws; how to ensure the effect of the laws, etc., in order to form a completeset of low-carbon legislations, which can ensure the development of low-carboneconomy for China.