Professor John Sweeney:

I appreciate that in the previous climate action plan, for example, sectoral budgets were indicated, which I welcome. It is one of the positive aspects of the current proposal that for the first time we will have those kinds of sectoral budgets.

The purpose of an annual target is to provide a glide path or indication as to whether we are on the right track. Currently, the Bill provides for the first investigation of that to occur in 2023. If we are going to monitor whether we are on the right track, we need to be much more sensitive than waiting until the end of a five-year budget, which may be immutable but which could be exceeded.

I mentioned sections that do not provide any sanction where an immutable five-year budget has been exceeded. Only 1% of the excess is allowed to be borrowed for remediation and it is not clear from where it will be borrowed, such as the second or third five-year budget.

Currently, there are approximately 60 million tonnes of CO2 being emitted per year and there may be a carbon budget of 200 million tonnes of CO2 over a five-year period. If we exceeded that with five years of 60 million tonnes of CO2 being emitted, the total would be 300 million tonnes of CO2, an excess of 100 million tonnes of CO2. As it stands, the Bill allows 1 million tonnes of CO2 from the total to be borrowed, leaving 99 million tonnes of CO2 that will be quietly forgotten about. There is no sanction in bringing that forward as a burden on the next carbon budget.

What is missing from the Bill is the ability to rectify a carbon budget that has been exceeded. It is simply not there. As I indicated, this is an amnesia clause that could wreck the entire purpose of the Bill in the event we exceed that five-year target. It is another reason that if there is some type of interim checking, we can see whether remedial action needs to be taken in advance of the ending of the five-year budget. Only then can we ensure we are back on track or not. This is another reason interim targets are so important.

On litigation and remediation, I am not interested in jailing or fining people unnecessarily or putting the Minister in the dock. I am interested in ensuring the State meets its obligations it has signed up to. We are not meeting them now in our 2020 targets.

With regard to changing communities-----