Opposition turns to top court to annul climate law

Hungary’s opposition parties are turning to the top court with a request that it annul the country’s law on climate protection, which they say “lists inadequate goals”. The parties also want more stringent measures to be legislated for, the co-leader of the green LMP party told a press conference on Tuesday.

At the press conference attended by representatives of LMP, Párbeszéd, the Democratic Coalition (DK), Jobbik, Momentum and the Socialists, Erzsébet Schmuck of LMP said the current legislation aimed to cut carbon emissions by 40 percent by 2030 while only increasing the ratio of sustainable energy resources by 21 percent.

The law does not tackle climate adaptation tasks at all, she added.

The opposition plea to the Constitutional Court was signed by 49 lawmakers, she said.

Although the opposition accepted a climate law proposal in 2021, the law was then “neutered” by the ruling parties so it now “cannot fulfil its purpose”, Schmuck said.

Bence Tordai of Párbeszéd, the party to submit the original proposal of the contested law, noted that the opposition’s proposal had been changed “to the point that it bears no resemblance to the original text”.

“In an act of outrageous cynicism”, Fidesz’s ruling parliamentary majority “ditched” three of the four climate goals and 10 of the 14 areas where the proposal said an action plan was necessary, Tordai said.

Anett Bősz of the Liberal Party, who sits in DK’s parliamentary group, said the adverse effects of climate change were already being felt and action was necessary “in 2021, not in decades’ time.”

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