氣候變遷公正轉型的法律程序──蘇格蘭與紐西蘭的借鏡

The Legal Process of Just Transition-the experience of Scotland and New Zealand

With the 2023 enactment of the Climate Change Response Act, Taiwan has been actively promoting just transition; however, the agencies and the public need to learn what just transition is and the institution and procedure to promote it. This article studies the experience of Scotland and New Zealand to provide policy guidance for Taiwan and other countries struggling to achieve net zero transition more fairly. This article finds that Scotland adopts a top-down approach, and New Zealand takes a bottom-up approach based on their different social contexts and policy purposes. The key to their success is a carefully managed legal process to construct the legal meaning and institution of just transition. By identifying preliminary objectives, agenda setting, operational framework, policy framework, and accountability mechanism, the just transition process becomes a consensus-building process on the meaning and legal framework of just transition. This article further examines the problems of current just transition policy and elaborates on four suggestions for policymakers, including ensuring just transition not to be used as an excuse for delaying net-zero transition, enhancing the accountability and independence of the just transition commission, making efforts on the institutional arrangement with a forward-looking perspective, and enhancing public participation to realize the co-design principle.