기후위기 대응을 위한 탄소중립･녹색성장 기본법에 따른 기후변화영향평가의 의의와 향후과제

Abstract

Rebecca Tarbotton, executive director of the U.S. Rainforest Action Network, said “We need to remember that the work of our time is bigger than climate change. We need to be setting our sights higher and deeper. What we’re really talking about, if we’re honest with ourselves, is transforming everything about the way we live on this planet.”This directly represents that we should focus on the ‘impacts’ that cause or result from climate change, not climate change itself, because those impacts are the reasons why the whole world is discussing climate change and focusing its efforts on responding to climate change. The objective of collecting scientific evidence on climate change is to reduce the temperature rise as much as possible and minimize the accompanying effects as the scale of impacts derived from temperature rise caused by human behavior can be changed according to the range of temperature rise. From this point of view, the impacts related to climate change can be divided into ‘impacts on climate change’ and ‘impacts caused by climate change’. In the former case, as the cause of climate change in relation to the increase in temperature is anthropogenic emissions as the IPCC noted, the reduction of greenhouse gas emission is the suitable option to reduce the impact. On the other hand, in the latter case, since the impact of climate change can appear in various sectors, such as regions, industries, and ecosystems, the impact should be considered from various aspects. One thing to note here is that as climate change does not appear locally, the impact should must be understood from a macroscopic perspective regardless of its type. Meanwhile, on March 25, 2022, the 「Framework Act on Green Growth, carbon neutrality for Response」 (hereinafter referred to as the Carbon Neutral Framework Act) came into effect. The Act stipulates climate change impact assessment as a tool to internalize carbon neutrality throughout society. Under the premise that the detailed consideration of ‘impact’ on climate change is required to effectively achieve the purpose set by the law and countermeasures, this paper discusses the direction of future legislation focusing on the climate change impact assessment settled by the Carbon Neutral Framework Act.