기후취약계층 보호를 위한 탄소중립기본법의 개선방안

The climate crisis is a global threat that fundamentally endangers human life, health, and survival, demanding a redefinition of the substantive meaning of the constitutionally guaranteed right to the environment. In the era of climate change, the right to the environment functions as a concrete and comprehensive fundamental right that ensures citizens’ entitlement to live in a clean and pleasant environment. The Framework Act on Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth (Framework Act) is significant in that it institutionalizes the state’s obligation to achieve carbon neutrality and sets the direction for a just transition, thereby establishing a legislative foundation for realizing the right to the environment. However, the climate crisis is not merely a matter of reducing greenhouse gas emissions; its impacts are distributed unevenly according to socioeconomic conditions, thereby exacerbating structural inequalities. Accordingly, laws and policies must be designed from the perspective of climate justice. Climate justice means implementing fair and inclusive policies to ensure that the burdens and damages caused by the climate crisis do not disproportionately affect certain groups, with a particular focus on protecting climate-vulnerable populations during industrial and energy transitions. Nevertheless, the current Framework Act only exemplifies workers, farmers, and small business owners, lacking concrete consideration for other socially vulnerable groups such as the elderly and women. This study analyzes the limitations of the Framework Act and proposes legislative improvements, including: (1) defining and legally specifying climate-vulnerable groups, (2) concretizing protection provisions for these groups in national and local plans, (3) enhancing the effectiveness of participatory systems, and (4) ensuring representativeness in the composition of the Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth Committee. Ultimately, legal systems to address the climate crisis should be reconstructed around the principle of a just transition based on the constitutional right to the environment, so that both the right to survival of socially disadvantaged groups and climate justice can be realized together.