Thus, it reaffirms the commitment to sustainable development for the benefit of the population and future generations. The Law will reduce the country’s vulnerability to climate change and will take advantage of opportunities for lower-carbon growth
Peru, considered the third most vulnerable country in the world to climate change, became today the first country in Latin America to have a Framework Law on Climate Change, aligned with the commitments of the Paris Agreement signed in 2015 by 193 States.
“A climate-responsible country can grow and has a forward-looking approach. It is the first in South America after the 2016 Paris Agreement came into force,» said President Martin Vizcarra when he enacted the Climate Change Law, within the framework of the Executive Branch – Regional Government Meetings [GORE-Ejecutivo] at the Government Palace.
The attendees to the signing of the Law were the President of the Council of Ministers, César Villanueva; the Minister of the Environment, Fabiola Muñoz; the regional governors of the entire country; and the President of the Commission on Andean, Amazonian and Afro-Peruvian Peoples, Environment and Ecology of the Congress of the Republic, Marco Arana.
The main objective of this standard is to strengthen the role of the Ministry of the Environment in the management of climate change, involving all ministries and various government entities, and establishing the mandatory nature of comprehensive climate change management instruments.
Therefore, it is important to note that this Law is governed by the following principles:
- Integration: Integrating climate change mitigation and adaptation into planning and foresight instruments.
- Cross-cutting component: The intervention against climate change is cross-cutting and multi-level.
- Resilience: Systems’ ability to cope with and respond to an event.
- Food security: Situation where people have access to food (in terms of quantity and quality).
- Vulnerability: Propensity or predisposition to be negatively affected.
The enactment of this law is key for the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), because since 2015, through its Climate Change Management Support Program, it has been contributing to concerted action in order to include the condition of climate change into public, multi-sector and multi-level management, with a view to low-carbon and climate-resilient development. Its contributions to the process behind the Framework Law on Climate Change should be noted:
- It submitted suggestions to Chapter II on the Institutionalism of the Law.
- It supported the Terms of Reference of the study «Analysis of the legal and public management implications and cost benefit,» which sustains the proposed Framework Law on Climate Change considering a Green Growth approach.
- It facilitated the proposal of «Baselines for building institutional agreements for climate change management.»
It should be highlighted that the Climate Change Law is the result of work that began in 2013 and has received inputs from the Executive Branch (Ministry of the Environment – MINAM), Legislative Branch, cooperation agencies and civil society organizations.
Source: MINAM
Related links
Climate Change Management Support Project, project sheet, Swiss Embassy, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC)
Web Climate Change Management Support Project
