Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Vice Chairman for the invitation to meet the committee today to discuss the agenda for the next meeting of the EU Environment Council, which takes place on the 13 December in Brussels.

As this is my first appearance before the committee on EU matters since Ireland held the Presidency of the EU, I take this opportunity to touch briefly on achievements in the area of environment and sustainable development during our Presidency. As I said when I addressed the committee in December 2012, our environmental Presidency objectives were quite ambitious in terms of advancing strategic policy, progressing certain legislative dossiers, and leading the EU in a very constructive and progressive way in international negotiations. I also expressed confidence that we would have a very credible record of achievement under our belts, and l am pleased to report back that we delivered in all these areas.

Where strategic policy is concerned, we paved the way for a better environment for the citizens of Europe by securing agreement on the 7th Environmental Action Programme.

The agreed programme will guide and drive actions in advancing resource efficiency, the green economy and the environmental agenda generally in the period to 2020 and beyond. We also succeeded in adopting Council conclusions on a climate change adaptation strategy which outlines how the EU can become more climate-resilient and can share experiences and expertise at EU, national and local levels to plan for a changing environment.

We achieved significant successes on major legislative files which are critically important to our climate and environment agendas. l am proud to say that, overall, we achieved no less than seven first reading agreements on environmental legislative dossiers, an excellent legacy of work for the Irish EU Presidency.

In the interactional arena we also had a demanding agenda, leading for the EU at what were often very complex negotiations. Here again, there were significant successes, including reaching agreement on a new global, legally-binding treaty on mercury.

Intensive EU Presidency planning started in my Department over three years ago and has, as I have just outlined, paid great dividends. This preparatory process included ensuring that the number of infringement cases instituted against Ireland by the European Commission in respect of environmental legislation was significantly reduced. I am pleased to confirm the number of these cases now stands at ten which compares with a figure of 19 when I assumed office in March 2011.

Turning now to the Council agenda for next week's meeting, discussions will take place on two legislative deliberations. First, the Council will consider a proposal for a regulation on the prevention and management of the introduction and spread of invasive alien species. My colleague, the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, will also attend the Council to represent Ireland in discussions on this agenda item.

The EU Presidency has posed two groups of questions for Ministers to discuss in respect of the development of a list of invasive alien species of union concern. This discussion will assist and direct the Council in its work on the proposed regulation over the coming months.

By way of background to this agenda item, I should state that invasive alien species are species that are transported through human action outside of their natural range across ecological barriers. They then survive, reproduce and spread with likely negative impacts on the ecology of their new location, as well as potentially serious economic and social consequences, for example, in the area of human health. Their impact on biodiversity can be significant, being one of the major causes of biodiversity loss and species extinction. They can also cause serious damage to infrastructure, forestry, agriculture, aquaculture and recreational facilities. In Ireland, species classified as invasive alien species would include the grey squirrel and mink, as well as particular plant species like certain weeds.

At the moment, there is no overarching legislative framework in the EU for dealing with this issue. This lack of a co-ordinated approach can mean that positive work in one member state can be undermined by lack of action in others. The proposed regulation aims to tackle the problem by establishing a framework for action to prevent, minimise and mitigate the adverse impacts of invasive alien species on biodiversity and ecosystem services, and to limit social and economic damage.

It will seek to do this by banning the intentional introduction of "species of Union concern" into the EU, putting in place measures to combat the unintentional introduction and release of such species, setting up an early-warning and rapid response system, and eradicating, or at least controlling, the most harmful ones throughout the EU.

Overall, like other member states, Ireland broadly welcomes the proposal as an important framework for managing a particularly difficult and costly problem. However, there is some concern regarding the resource implications and the availability of funding needed to properly implement the regulation. That said, the long-term cost of inaction cannot be underestimated.

There is also concern arising from the commission's proposal to cap the number of species covered by the regulation, which could restrict member states' ability to manage species of specific domestic concern. In this regard, my ministerial colleague, Deputy Deenihan, will be seeking to ensure that the proposed regulation will not impinge on our domestic legislation and on the systems we already have in place for dealing with invasive alien species of particular national concern.

The second discussion to take place in Council is on a proposed regulation on the monitoring, reporting and verification of carbon dioxide emissions from maritime transport. While this is a policy matter for my colleague the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, the issue will be dealt with through the Environment Council and I will be representing Ireland at Council in these discussions.

The main objective of the draft regulation is to establish a European system for the monitoring, reporting and evaluation of CO2 emissions from ships as a first step of a staged approach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Member states are required to establish a system of penalties, information exchange and expulsion orders for non-compliance with the regulation.

There are no major implications for Irish shipping interests. The scope of the regulation targets ships over a threshold of 5,000 gross tonnes. There are only eight ships above this threshold on the Irish register at present. However, there will be some resource implications for the maritime survey office of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport.

The proposal is currently being examined by the Environment Council's working group and we, along with many other member states, are awaiting clarifications from the commission regarding definitions and implications.

Over lunch, ministers will have an informal discussion on the implementation of the commitments reached at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development, more commonly known as Rio+20. Discussions covering a number of strands are continuing under the auspices of the United Nations on developing a sustainable development framework to apply from 2015 onwards. Intergovernmental negotiations will commence towards the end of 2014 to agree this post-2015 agenda as a successor to the Millennium Development Goals.

At the end of the day's business, the Council will consider a small number of items under the any other business heading, during which information will be provided to Council. While detailed debate is not expected on the items listed, I will briefly touch on them now.

First, the Presidency will be providing a report on the recent climate change COP held in Warsaw last month. As members of the committee may know, I attended the high-level segment of the Warsaw conference which was the first of three COPs towards the anticipated finalisation of a new global agreement in Paris in December 2015. Although negotiations were difficult, the Warsaw COP saw the agreement of a work programme and timeline from Warsaw to Paris designed to deliver ambitious mitigation commitments from all countries. It made progress towards a framework for parties to come forward with their commitments in a transparent manner, well in advance of the Paris COP in December 2015, and set out a number of ways in which pre-2020 ambition will be enhanced and accelerated.

The main focus of the EU and other developed-country parties was on securing a clear process and milestones to get all parties, including developing countries, to bring meaningful emission reduction commitments to the table early in 2015. In that way, there can be robust analysis to see whether we are on track globally to keep temperature increases below two degrees and to see whether there is a fair share of efforts being undertaken by those countries able to do so, especially the larger economies currently outside the Kyoto commitments process, like China, Brazil, the US, India and others.

The EU had four priorities in Warsaw: sending a clear signal that parties had to start the domestic analysis needed to come forward with mitigation commitments in the 2015 agreement; a timeline from Warsaw to Paris designed to deliver ambitious mitigation commitments; agreement that, when parties come forward with their commitments, they would have to do so in a way that is transparent and allows them to be easily understood, sufficiently in advance of Paris; and agreement on a process to assess proposed commitments to ensure they are fair and sufficiently ambitious.

The consensus decisions adopted by the parties delivered the first three of these and creates a space to ensure the last objective in relation to achieving the ultimate objective of the convention - the below two degrees goal - is met.

While on climate matters, let me turn briefly to the domestic front. First of all, l thank the joint committee for its recently published report on the outline heads of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill and the associated analysis report by the NESC secretariat. I am grateful to the committee for facilitating a debate on national policy and legislation through inviting written submissions from interested individuals and groups as well as in conducting oral hearings.

I welcome the fact that the joint committee acknowledges that Ireland's greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for the periods to 2030, 2040 and 2050 should be as ultimately agreed by member states as part of any future effort-sharing decision agreed at EU level. Having said that, we should not be without a clear vision for the future, as proposed by the joint committee in its interpretation of low carbon development.

Although the joint committee's many possible courses of action remain under consideration, my preliminary view is that reducing the intervals between proposed national roadmaps for emission reductions from seven to five years is a good one, so as to enable rapidly changing circumstances both nationally and internationally to be addressed. Similarly, I believe that the joint committee's emphasis on strengthening the functioning of the proposed national expert advisory body on climate change is well grounded, and I will be examining closely how this can be achieved institutionally and operationally. In this regard, empowering the expert advisory body to directly publish its annual reports is a reasonable accommodation which I would like to see in the final draft heads of the Bill.

In the main, the joint committee's report constitutes a constructive and helpful addition to the debate on the Bill. I have asked my officials to carefully analyse the report with a view to identifying appropriate changes to the provisions in the forthcoming climate action and low carbon development Bill.

I will now finish with some brief comments on the remaining AOB items on the Council's agenda. The Lithuanian Presidency will provide a brief update on a proposal for a directive on promoting the use of energy from renewable sources. This proposal seeks to amend both the renewable energy directive and the fuel quality directive, with a view to minimising the impact of indirect changes of land use on greenhouse gas emissions. The Commission published a report in 2010 on indirect land use change, ILUC, related to biofuels and bio-liquids, which acknowledged that ILUC can impact on potential greenhouse gas emissions savings associated with biofuels.

In relation to aviation aspects of the EU emissions trading system, the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, assembly recently decided on the development of a global market-based mechanism for international aviation to be finalised at the next assembly in 2016, with implementation to take place by 2020. In response to this, the European Commission has brought forward a proposal amending the EU emissions trading system directive.

This proposal would apply from 2014 to 2020 when it is expected that a global market-based mechanism would become applicable. Discussions at a working party level are currently taking place on the European Commission proposal with the next meeting scheduled for 6 December. In general, Ireland welcomes the proposal as a way forward which allows further negotiations on a global agreement to reduce aviation emissions. The Commission will present a proposal for a directive on packaging and packaging waste to reduce the consumption of lightweight plastic carrier bags.

The introduction of a plastic bag levy in Ireland has been one of the major success stories in terms of Ireland's environmental performance in the last decade and we are leading the way in terms of our efforts to reduce consumption. The levy has been hugely successful and has very significantly altered consumer behaviour. Our strong performance in this area means that we are to the fore in pioneering progressive policies and in significantly reducing use of such bags.

Ireland welcomes efforts to reduce the consumption of plastic carrier bags and we hope that our efforts and successes have been helpful to the Commission in developing its proposals. However, it will be important that we are not made to suffer as a result of our previous strong performance in this area. Our progress has been so extensive that further reductions will be more difficult for Ireland to achieve than for other member states. We will be seeking to ensure that the final instrument takes proper account of our ground-breaking efforts in this area.

The Commission will be providing an update on the review of the EU's thematic strategy on air pollution. The review explores options for further mitigating impacts of air pollution on health and the environment based on the most up-to-date science, which indicated that air pollution can still cause harm at very low levels, even below current EU standards. Ireland welcomes new measures being taken at EU level to protect and improve air quality which will provide increased protection for human health. Moreover, there is a growing consensus that air pollution policies can better link with climate change mitigation given that key air pollutants such as black carbon and ozone are significant components of atmospheric warming. During our Presidency, we facilitated an important discussion among Ministers and also with key policy makers and stakeholders and I am pleased to see that these considerations have fed into the proposed strategic reforms and initiatives. Finally, Greece will present its programme for its Presidency commencing on 1 January 2014.

This is a run-through of the main items tabled for next week's Council agenda. I am happy to deal with any questions which the Chairman or members may have.