On 1 October the Cabinet of Ministers approved the Climate Bill drawn up by the Ministry of Climate and Energy (KEM). The aim of the bill is to keep Latvia moving towards limiting climate change by reducing the vulnerability of society and the economy to the consequences of climate change, and to encourage the transformation towards sustainable development while continuing to safeguard the competitiveness of individual sectors (agriculture, transport and others). The bill is being submitted to the Saeima for further consideration.
Of the extreme weather events driven by climate change, the ones that worry Latvia's residents most are heatwaves and drought, according to public survey data from 2024 by Norstat. Almost all of us across most of Latvia felt the consequences of this summer's storms and heavy rainfall, which at the same time caused financial losses. Weather extremes brought on by climate change are making themselves felt ever more frequently, and so measures to adapt to climate change call for efforts at every level — global, national, municipal and individual.
"The Climate Bill sets out the role, duties, responsibilities and involvement of everyone — the state, local government and the individual — in implementing climate policy, so that through joint efforts we can reduce climate change and the consequences it has for our economy. Climate change is present in every sector — in agriculture, in transport, in energy and elsewhere — and it is therefore essential that elements of climate policy are built into the policies of all sectors, reducing those sectors' vulnerability to climate change. By introducing climate change mitigation and adaptation measures, we become more efficient in our use of resources over the long term and reduce the losses caused by climate change. It is equally important to stress that integrating climate objectives into municipal and sectoral development planning is also an essential precondition for taking up funding, for example EU funds," says Minister for Climate and Energy Kaspars Melnis.
To bring about the transition to a sustainable economy, a number of financial instruments are available, particularly to local authorities — European Union (EU) sources of finance (including the ERDF, the LIFE programme and others), the state budget (the emission allowance auctioning instrument, the modernisation fund and others), and other funding (the European Climate Initiative — EUKI — and others).
Climate-unfriendly emissions (that is, greenhouse gases) arise from the use of fossil fuels in energy and product manufacturing, the use of fossil fuels in transport, agricultural activities, product manufacturing, waste management, and the land use and forestry sectors. What matters, therefore, is how we live, how we travel, how we heat or cool our homes, how we manage land, and how we produce and consume.
Latvia's emissions reduction target for 2030 is 17% compared with 2005, as set out in the Climate Bill. This target applies to sectors of the economy — transport, agriculture, industry, energy and waste management. Among EU member states, the emissions reduction target set for Latvia is the fourth lowest, while for Estonia it is a 24% reduction and for Lithuania 21%. The Climate Bill establishes the responsibilities for meeting the objectives of Latvia's National Energy and Climate Plan for 2021-2030.
The Climate Bill brings together in one place all the legal provisions on climate policy that were previously defined in other laws, and also introduces new elements that have not been regulated until now. New EU legislation in the field of climate came into force last spring, and KEM accordingly refined and broadened the scope of the bill to ensure that the new EU legislation is transposed.
Work on preparing the Climate Bill has been under way since 2021. KEM took over its drafting in 2023. In the course of the drafting, repeated public consultations, inter-institutional meetings and seminars were held on putting the provisions of the law into practice. Working with sectoral associations, listening and discussing, a number of provisions were clarified and improved.
The Climate Bill has been drawn up in line with the European Climate Law and with the obligations under the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Paris Agreement, which provide for limiting the rise in global average temperature, seeking to hold the increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels and thereby substantially reducing the risks and impacts of climate change. The Paris Agreement has been ratified by 194 countries around the world and by the European Union. What is set out in the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is binding not only on the EU and Latvia but on almost every country in the world, including, for example, the USA, China, Japan and others.