Ms Anja Murray:

We thank the committee for inviting us to this meeting. We welcome the opportunity to bring nature-based approaches to climate change before the committee.

BirdWatch Ireland is Ireland's largest NGO and we have been actively engaging in climate change issues for over ten years. I will not outline the scale of the challenge because that is contained in our submission and I am sure members are aware of it. We are keen to see a target of 80% to 95% for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It is really important to have targets; otherwise, the effectiveness of the Bill will be undermined.

Biodiversity and climate change are not issues people would usually put together. The interaction of climate change and biodiversity has been reflected in the national biodiversity action plan. There is a quote from the plan in the submission. It states how important ecosystems are for actively removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, as well as being really important in providing adaptation to existing impacts of climate change. There will be impacts from climate change and they can buffer us against some of the worst impacts, such as flooding.

Nature-based solutions to climate change are very cost efficient. They are our key ally in the fight against climate change in respect of both mitigation and adaptation strategies. The most important and relevant example of this in Ireland is peat bogs - that is, peatland restoration and conservation. Bogs store an enormous quantity of greenhouse gases. In Ireland the figure is approximately 1.56 million tonnes of carbon. This is massive. They actively absorb 2.64 million tonnes of carbon per year. They are a massive store of carbon and they are actively doing us what is effectively a free service. The problem is that when we reduce the water table in peat bogs and degrade those bogs through burning, turf cutting or peat extraction, that role is reversed and the bogs start to release greenhouse gases. At present, Ireland is a net source of greenhouse gas. I provided a figure in the submission. This Bill must have specific targets for restoration of degraded peat bogs. We must examine that issue if Ireland is to do anything meaningful to reduce its emissions. Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General, has said the restoration of peatlands represents low-hanging fruit. It is among the most cost-effective options for mitigating climate change. It is important to point out that it is not part of the UNFCCC process, so it must be in addition to cutting emissions. A required action we have sought for the Bill is that it should adopt targets for the restoration of protected peatlands to stop carbon loss in accordance with the recommendation in "Bogland", a major study compiled by many academics across the universities in which they put forward a set of recommendations. The Bill should set a target for achieving this by 2020 through partnership approaches to peatland management. This has happened in the UK, Canada and other countries. In the UK, for example, there is a target of 1 million hectares of peatland to be restored by 2020. Ireland is very far behind. We have done a handful of studies which have shown that we can successfully cap losses of carbon from peat bogs, but we have done very little on this. We must do a great deal more.

Energy is another big issue. Some of our mitigation actions can have negative impacts on the environment. We must ensure there is explicit reference to protection of the environment in the Bill. The challenge we face is to protect nature while deploying renewables at the scale and pace required. BirdWatch Ireland supports our renewable energy targets and supports meeting those targets through wind energy, but there must be a strategic and planned approach to the deployment of renewable energy in Ireland. BirdWatch Ireland is actively working towards that with sensitivity mapping for wind energy. That is a really important issue.

Bio-fuels are another issue. Until now, there has been much support for bio-fuels, but unsustainable production of bio-fuels is driving environmental damage. It is not as climate-friendly as had been assumed. In some cases the bio-fuel can be more climate-damaging than conventional oil. The required action for this Bill is that there are references to the protection of the environment and explicitly for biodiversity that require no damage to valuable ecosystems arising from mitigation and adaptation strategies. Targets for reducing emissions from fossil fuels must be matched with equally strong policies and measures aimed at protecting natural ecosystems from destruction by conversion to meet the displaced energy demand.

The other really important issue relating to energy is that there must be clear and legally binding energy efficiency targets. That is really crucial.

Other ecosystem-based approaches to climate change adaptation are adaptation strategies for wildlife, in terms of wildlife having to adapt to climate change. There must be buffer zones around our existing Natura 2000 nature conservation sites. Also, there must be catchment-based flood attenuation. This is important because wetlands provide a really important service to attenuate flooding. With regard to increasing the resilience of forestry, there must be a pile of actions in the forestry sector to improve the extent to which forestry is mitigating climate change. At present, there is an over-reliance on single species monoculture. Much more could be done. Studies throughout Europe show a great deal more carbon sequestration can be achieved by continuous-cover forestry approaches.

I have rushed through the submission because I cannot read from it, so I referred to some of the key points. The overarching point is that ecosystems are a very important ally in our fight against climate change. They are also consistent with a pile of other benefits. This is an opportunity for Ireland. Ireland depends a great deal on its clean, green image, particularly in agriculture and tourism. Currently, our performance with regard to environmental legislation is atrocious. We rank at the bottom of the European scales. We have a great deal to achieve if we are to benefit from maintaining a clean green image. Having specific targets and incorporating biodiversity and environmental considerations into those is essential.