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...

Legal nuts and bolts

To make sure that the basic elements of your proposed law read coherently and look more like "a proper law", we recommend that you add some standard features. These will vary, depending on how laws are drafted in your country or region.

We recommend considering inclusion of the following generally standard conditions:

Name

The name of a law should accurately describe its contents.

If you are proposing to cover a wide range of technologies, then entitling the basic elements of your FIT law as 'The Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff Law' makes sense; or such similar wording in line with the terminology or convention for proposed laws in your country or region.

If you are proposing to cover only one or two technologies, including them in the title might be appropriate.

Choose the name of your proposed law

First you can select the usual term for legislation in your country or region. If the term for legislation is 'Act'  then choose Option A. Otherwise choose Option B. Your preferred term will be used throughout the document.

 
Act
Law

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Next you can choose the draft sample text provided for the name of your proposed law document (Option A) or choose to draft your own text offline (Option B).

If you choose Option A, and have made a selection above for the term 'Act' or 'Law' then only your preferred term will appear in your document, with the exception  that if you choose 'Act' then 'Bill' will appear on the top of the front page in your proposed law document and 'Act' will appear where the term is used inside sections of the Bill.

If you choose Option B, the text in square brackets will appear in your document.

 
Option A
Renewable Energy Feed-in Tariff [Act] [Law]
Option B
[You have chosen not to use the draft sample text provided on the name of your proposed law document. You may insert your own name here after downloading.]

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Preamble

Sometimes, a law is introduced by words that describe the reasons for enacting it: the Preamble. Usually, the Preamble is not a part of the law, but can be used to help work out its meaning.

Insert a Preamble into your proposed law

Here you can choose the draft sample text provided for a Preamble (Option A) or choose to draft your own text offline (Option B).

If you choose Option A, the text provided will appear at the beginning of your proposed law document, and you will need to insert offline the names of your country or region and legislative body.  If you choose Option B, the text in square brackets will appear in your document.

 
Option A
  • Considering the urgent need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to prevent dangerous climate change,
  • Noting the increasing, large-scale contribution that producing electricity from renewable energy sources can make to reducing such emissions, at the same time as helping to meet our energy needs and having other beneficial environmental, social and economic effects,
  • Noting particularly the importance of a secure and diversified energy supply,
  • Aware of the benefits in these respects that well-designed renewable energy feed-in tariff laws have brought in, and to, other countries and regions, and
  • Wishing to enact such legislation in [insert the name of your country or region], the [insert the name of the relevant legislative body] hereby passes the following law:
Option B
[You have chosen not to use draft sample text provided for the Preamble. You may insert your own Preamble text here after downloading.]

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Purpose

FIT laws can advance several purposes. Whilst the World Future Council supports FIT laws in order to help combat climate change urgently, other worthwhile purposes include reduction of air pollution, security of energy supply and poverty eradication.

The law should state its purpose or purposes. It is up to you how many purposes you wish to include. This will depend largely on your motivation in promoting the law, on the motivation and range of your allies, and on the particular provisions you have chosen.

In general, a potential legal advantage of having a smaller number of purposes is that possible conflicts between different purposes are minimised. On the other hand, a greater number of purposes can increase flexibility, for example by providing more legal bases for the exercise of functions envisaged by the law.

Choose the purposes of your proposed law

Here you can choose text for the purposes of your proposed law.

Under Option A, you may choose one or more of the listed purposes. These will then appear as section 1 in your proposed law document with the section numbering and title, and preceded by the opening words.

If you choose Option B, the text in square brackets will appear in section 1 of your document with the section numbering and title, and preceded by the opening words.

 
1Purpose
Option A
The purposes of this [Act] [law] are to promote the production and use of electricity from renewable energy in order to:
mitigate urgently the causes of climate change
reduce local and regional air, soil and water pollution
protect the environment and human health
contribute to the achievement of sustainable development
help poverty eradication
create new jobs and improve economic and social well-being in rural and isolated areas
secure and diversify the energy supply
reduce long-term price volatility of fossil fuels
contribute to the development of the energy technology industry
Option B
[You have chosen not to use the draft sample text provided for the purposes of your proposed law. You may insert your own text here after downloading.]

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Scope

It is common for laws to set out the subject matter they cover. This makes the framework of the law clear, and can help to understand and interpret what is within, and what is outside, the law.

Include this feature in your proposed law 

Here you can choose the draft sample text provided on the scope of your proposed law (Option A) or choose to draft your own text offline (Option B).

If you choose Option A or Option B, the text provided or in square brackets will appear as, or in, section 2 of your proposed law document with the section number and title.

Note: if you do not use the draft sample text provided for any feature, we recommend you consider carefully the wording of this Scope section to ensure that it accurately reflects the draft basic elements of your proposed FIT law.

 
2Scope
Option A
The scope of this [Act] [law] is to provide for:
  • (1) the setting and achievement of targets for the amount of electricity consumed from renewable energy;
  • (2) the technologies and plants whose producers will benefit from obligations in respect of transparent, objective and non-discriminatory connection to the grid, and of payment of a [tariff][price] for the electricity produced, guaranteed for a minimum period; and
  • (3) progress reports on its operation.
Option B
[You have chosen not to use the draft sample text provided for the scope. You may insert your own text here after downloading.]

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Definitions

Words and phrases that are repeated several times in the provisions of a law are often defined at the beginning or at the end of the law. This helps to avoid repetition, and to make meanings clear. Words and phrases that are defined in the law sometimes appear with their first letter or letters in capitals, in order to indicate that they are defined terms. 

If you choose to use any of the draft sample text provided on this website for the basic elements of a proposed FIT law, and that text includes defined terms, the meaning of those terms will appear automatically in the Definitions section of your downloaded document.

We also urge you to read the Health Warning