Climate change mitigation - National Responses (Slovakia)

The economic measures and restructuring of industry including the energy sector played the most important role in achieving current decoupling of GHG emissions in the Slovak Republic. The role of national environmental legislation for air quality protection which was adopted in the Slovak Republic in 1991 could be important, if not decisive.

Provisions of Act No 137/2010 on air protection:

• focused on the regulation of basic pollutants emissions as SO₂, NOx, CO and solid particles from middle and large-scale sources,

• allowed the use of only operators using BATNEEC (best available technology not entailing excessive costs) for the establishment of new and retrofitting old units,

• defined charges for non-compliance with concentration emission limits.

• the classification of emission sources into Categories A and B by introducing Category B for existing sources not meeting emission limits by the originally announced deadline,

• higher charges for non-compliance and dynamic increases,

• a domestic cap and trade system with SO₂ emission quotas on country, district and individual source level,

• by ministerial decree in 2000, quotas for district level for the years 2002, 2003 and 2004 were first issued,

• district competent authorities have further quotas to distribute to source operators.

The basic legal framework for climate change was gradually expanded in 2008 by other new as well as existing revised legal instruments, in particular Directive 2004/101/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive 2003/87/EC, expanding the emission trading scheme, which will also cover aviation since 2012. At the national level transposed to the Act 117/2007 Coll. changing and amending Act 572/2004 Coll. on emission trading and on the change and the amendment of certain acts, as amended by Act 733/2004 Coll. The Act amends several provisions of the Act 572/2004 Coll. regarding terms and definitions, rights and obligations of the Ministry of Environment, the administrator of the Registry and traders with emission allowances. In relation to the transposition of Directive 2004/101/EC, the act defines conditions for the use of certified emission reduction (CER) and emission reduction units (ERU) within the trading scheme.

As a follow-up to its commitment, the European Commission put forward in January 2008 the climate change and energy package ¹ including new legislative measures covering the main sectors of the EU economy. The Climate and Energy Package was officially approved in 2009 as a complex framework for compliance with the ambitious goals of the European Union by 2020. A parallel process of the transposition of approved standards into national legislation is progressing, as well as the development of new legislative instruments at the level of the European Commission. The Slovak Government established in their Resolution No 190/2008, 26 March 2008, the Climate-Energy Package Committee at state-secretary-level of ministries of the environment, transport, finance, economy, regional development, agriculture and foreign affairs to implement policies and measures into national circumstances. In November 2009, the Committee will present their final report of planned policies and measures inside the sectors, with their impact on national emission and energy saving level up to 2020 ², to the Slovak Government.

1 Communication from the Commission: Progress Towards Achieving the Kyoto Objectives, Brussels, 7 August 2008.

2 The Slovak Government Resolution No 190/2008 (http://www.rokovania.sk/appl/material.nsf/0/A874BB1EE211E046C1257516004A39B6/$FILE/Zdroj.html).