Addressing climate change through environmental assessment tools in planning processes: international practices and perspectives for Niger

4. COMPARISON OF ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT ASSESSMENT PROCEDURE IN EUROPEAN UNION (EU) AND NIGER

4.1. Criteria for Comparison

As mentioned before, there is no legislation or guideline regarding the SEA in Niger. That is why the comparison concerns only the European Union EIA Directive and the Niger Legislation on EIA. It is carried out based on the review of literature on theory and concept of mainstreaming CC in EIA and considering the key steps in the Procedure. The comparative analysis identifies the steps of the EIA procedures in which CC issues are taken into consideration.

These steps are: (1) screening, (2) scoping, (3) assessment and evaluation of the EIA, (4) project appraisal and (5) monitoring conditions.

The comparative study aims to highlight the similarities and differences with related to CC and EIA legislation in EU and Niger in the five steps cited above.

4.2. Results

Table 1 shows that the EU EIA Directive 2014/52 requires the CC mainstreaming in the three steps out of five chosen for the comparison i.e. the screening, scoping, and assessment and evaluation steps even though it does not provide any specific requirement regarding CC in the project appraisal and the project monitoring steps.

In contrary, Niger Legislation on EIA does not provide any requirement regarding CC mainstreaming in EIA procedure in the five steps considered for the comparison.

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Table 1: Comparison of EU EIA Directive and Niger Ordinance 97-001 on EIA and its Decree 2000-397 on Administrative Procedure

CC mainstreaming in EIA steps	EU Directive 2014/52	Niger Ordinance Decree 2000-397	97-001	and
Screening	The risk of major accidents or disasters, including those caused by CC is one of the criteria to determine whether the projects listed in Annex II should be subject to an EIA	Nil
Scoping	A description of the factors likely to be significantly affected by the project including climate (GHG emissions, impacts relevant to adaptation); and the impact of the project on climate and the vulnerability of the project to CC are required (Annex IV)	Nil
Assessment and Evaluation of EIA Procedure	The Competent Authority assesses and evaluates the EIA based on the information required in Annex IV recalled during the scoping.	Nil
Project Appraisal	Nil	Nil
Monitoring Conditions	Nil	Nil

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4.3. Discussions

The comparison of EIA legislations has enabled us to note two completely different systems, on the one hand, Ordonnance 97 001 and its implementing Decree 2000-397 of Niger which do not include any provision related to CC considerations in the EIA procedure and on the other hand, EU Directive 2014/52 which requires that these aspects be taken into account not only when defining the criteria for screening but also in the scoping and the assessment and evaluation of the EIA report by the Competent Authority. Though the EU Directive entered into force few years ago (2014), the MS had until May 2017 to transpose it into their national legislation.

Nevertheless, the adoption of the directive that takes into consideration CC itself constitute an important step to enabling GHG awareness of projects subjected to EIAs, assisting proponents in managing or reducing risks associated with CC and ensuring the public that CC issues are considered in projects development. However, neither changing climatic parameters nor thresholds or limits of GHG emissions requirements concerning the environmental assessment of projects in the EIA have been explicitly mentioned in the EU Directive. That opening could lead MS to have different views on the degree to which and how GHG emissions should be assessed and controlled in each project but a review of previous EIAs conducted under the former directive and national legislations could help them to understand these views and identify reasonable and practical approaches to GHG emissions at the project level.

As pointed out in the previous chapters, the implementation of this new paradigm is a major challenge to overcome despite the tendency that CC will continue to harm the environment and jeopardize economic development. One of these challenges is how to link the GHG emissions from an individual project to their impact on CC because of the huge gap in scale between the global climate and the local climate affected by individual project.

Despite the challenges raised, it is probable that an appropriate assessment of the impact of project on climate and its vulnerability to CC would lead to propose proper mitigation measures and consequently enhance the project's sustainability and lifespan considering the need for mainstreaming the climate change in environmental assessment is increasingly expressed worldwide.