Professor Frank Convery:

It is a pleasure and privilege to be here. I am here with two hats on - my hat as chairman of the Earth Institute at UCD and my hat as chairman of PublicPolicy.ie. My colleague, Mr. Cormac O'Sullivan, is from PublicPolicy.ie.

There are eight points in our submission and I will quickly go through them in determining how we know whether we have good legislation. The first concerns the fact that Ireland can only be effective if it works through the European Union. A sinn féin, unilateral policy will not work. The key test is whether we are being an effective leader in Europe and whether what we are doing is having a European multiplier effect. I make the case for this in our submission.

The second point concerns whether we are transforming agriculture to be climate-efficient. This is covered on page 4 of my document. Agriculture contributes 44% of our emissions in the non-trading area. It is a hugely significant sector, economically, socially and environmentally. A test of whether we have an effective climate policy will be whether we can drive the sector in ways that create jobs and protect the climate. We go through the Glanbia model, which is a very exciting one. We strongly urge the committee to look specifically at addressing this challenge in the legislation.

The third point is covered on page 5 and concerns whether energy efficiency is prioritised. That is where the biggest pay-off is in terms of effort. However, there are huge challenges involved in getting us all to be energy efficient. A test of whether we have effective climate legislation is whether we are effective in achieving energy efficiency.

The fourth point is very close to my heart as an academic. It is the question of innovation. We cannot achieve what we need to achieve without doing things differently - sometimes radically differently. The universities, research institutions, farmers, businesspeople and the transport sector all have key roles to play, but we must create a policy framework that essentially will drive us in new, different and better ways. That is missing in the current draft and I strongly urge the committee to make sure creating an innovation infrastructure is part of the system.

The fifth point concerns whether our political institutional arrangements foster and facilitate effective action. There are key players. One of the nice things about the heads of the Bill is that they create a structure through the management system to bring these together. This needs to be strongly embedded in the legislation.

The sixth point concerns whether the policies we have in place are sustained and developed. We courageously brought forward a carbon tax that is working and is very important.

We recalibrated the new car taxes to favour low-energy use and carbon efficient cars. We have done many very good things and it is very important that we keep doing and building on them so as not to lose them.

The second last point concerns whether we are making sure our children understand. This is legislation to protect the future of our children and grandchildren. There are many initiatives, but through the green schools initiative and ECO-UNESCO, in particular, the education and engagement of the rising generation are easy to tap into, but the legislation or draft heads do not embrace this.

Are we effectively addressing adaptation and climate justice? In the Mary Robinson Foundation here in Ireland we have a global leader in the climate justice agenda. It is all about helping poor people and ourselves to adapt to the now inevitable climate change. That is touched on but not addressed specifically in the legislation.

Overall, we think the heads of the Bill represent a very good start, but there are some areas in which there are gaps and others that need more emphasis.