Influencing the 2050 long-term strategy through public participation

The document outlines the legal requirements for public participation in the development of national long-term strategies (LTS) for greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2050. It asserts that the EU Governance Regulation (GR) is insufficiently clear and may not fully comply with the Aarhus Convention, which mandates early public involvement when all options are open. ClientEarth provides a consolidated procedure for compliant participation, including open access to all interested parties, active dissemination of relevant documents, and specific timeframes for consultation. The briefing notes that previous strategies submitted under the Paris Agreement are insufficient to meet current GR requirements and urges that public participation for the 2020 deadline should have commenced by September 2019.

• EU Member States are required to deliver a long-term strategy (LTS) to the European Commission by 1 January 2020, detailing plans for greenhouse gas emission reductions and sink removals until at least 2050.
• The Aarhus Convention Compliance Committee determined in February 2019 that the Governance Regulation (GR) does not fully comply with the Aarhus Convention because it lacks mandatory steps for early and effective public participation in National Energy and Climate Plans (NECP).
• National LTSs are distinct from previous strategies submitted under the Paris Agreement because they must follow the specific outline of Annex IV and drafting directions of Article 15 of the GR, and must be coherent with post-public participation NECPs.
• To be compliant with the Aarhus Convention, public participation must be open to all interested individuals and organisations, rather than just selected stakeholder groups.
• Authorities are required to actively disseminate all relevant information, including the draft LTS, environmental consequence reports, cost-benefit analyses, and an outline of studied alternatives.
• A compliant public participation process should ideally include an initial 6-week period for the public to consider disseminated information, followed by a second 6-week period for active participation.
• Authorities must not only take the outcome of public participation into account but also issue a document explicitly detailing how public comments were considered.
• ClientEarth considers that public participation for the LTS should have started no later than September 2019 to ensure it occurs while all options are still open.

APA

ClientEarth (2019). Influencing the 2050 long-term strategy through public participation. https://www.clientearth.org/media/5hqp3l2p/influencing-the-long-term-strategy-through-public-participation-ce-en.pdf

Chicago

ClientEarth. Influencing the 2050 long-term strategy through public participation. 2019. https://www.clientearth.org/media/5hqp3l2p/influencing-the-long-term-strategy-through-public-participation-ce-en.pdf.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=ClientEarth |title=Influencing the 2050 long-term strategy through public participation |date=15 May 2019 |url=https://www.clientearth.org/media/5hqp3l2p/influencing-the-long-term-strategy-through-public-participation-ce-en.pdf |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{clientearth2019influencing, author = {{ClientEarth}}, title = {{Influencing the 2050 long-term strategy through public participation}}, institution = {ClientEarth}, year = {2019}, month = may, url = {https://www.clientearth.org/media/5hqp3l2p/influencing-the-long-term-strategy-through-public-participation-ce-en.pdf}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }