The PACT project aims to provide the necessary elements for rapidly introducing policy to combat climate change - giving parliamentarians, civil servants, and advocates around the world access to the legal and technical expertise needed to envisage, to argue for and to enact laws and policies that effectively protect the climate. Find out more...

The Policy Action on Climate Toolkit

a World Future Council project

So far we have not been able to combat climate change successfully. The problem is not the lack of technical and political solutions, but our capacity to employ them rapidly and on a global scale. The PACT project is intended to address these barriers and accelerate the spread of legislation that is proven to protect the climate.

Initially the focus will be on energy policies - policies that successfully encourage the rapid uptake of renewable energy, and that increase energy efficiency, thereby helping to reduce demand. Over time, we will build a site which offers a range of policies to encourage a revolution in our energy systems.

the first phase...

The first policy to be tackled by the PACT project is renewable energy feed-in tariffs (FITs). Working in partnership with a team of international lawyers and some of the leading experts in the field, the World Future Council has created an online resource which details:

The political and technical prerequisites for introducing a FIT in a particular country; and
The objectives and key features of a good FIT, and the various aspects to each of these.

In both cases, the site offers the user a means of progressing the development or improvement of a FIT law for their country or region. In terms of technical prerequisites, for example, it offers links to analyses of potential renewable resources in different countries.

... of an innovative project

The real innovation, however, comes in the presentation of the features:

For key features of a good FIT law, the site offers not only an explanation and examples from existing laws, but also some sample legal text. As the user moves through the site, they can collect these bits of sample text and to generate their own proposed FIT law, which can then be used to trigger public discussion and parliamentary action.

Text generated in this way will have to be worked on by local lawyers and subjected to local debate, but the site will offer the user legal text for each of the core elements of a good law.

The PACT site also has country specific pages. Over time these pages will become resources in their own right, with country specific analysis and a list of individuals and organisations who are working in this area, and who can be contacted by people wanting to collaborate in changing the energy system in that country.