Mr. Andrew Jackson:

I might revert to Deputy Bruton's questions if I may because they were directed at Professor Sweeney but I have some thoughts on those too, so I may come back to the committee in writing on those.

I thank Senator Higgins for those questions. I might speak to the latter two with one comment on non-territorial emissions. It would be useful if, as the UK does now, we started reporting on the basis of consumption emissions as well as purely what is happening with our emissions in terms of their movements up or down and used consumption accounting and reported those emissions alongside. That is a very useful feature of the UK's reporting.

On the question of the robustness of the Bill in ensuring we will achieve reductions in the next ten years, my strong view is that the Bill is not robust at all in achieving that. I strongly suspect that if the Bill were passed it stands, we would be back here in ten years asking where it all went wrong, how it was possible that we made a second generation climate law that was weaker than first generation laws in other jurisdictions and that did not therefore result in the rapid and deep fall in emissions that were required. That is down to, among other things, the language used in the Bill.

This overlaps with a point Deputy Bruton made about modifying the targets. The Scottish Act provides for modification. I argued in my opening statement that we should include something similar. Essentially, the Scottish Act follows a one-way ratchet, so we have a progression of increased ambition, not reduced ambition. That is secured in Scotland by a reference to target-setting criteria, including what is the fair and safe Scottish budget, but also there is a limit on reducing ambition because modifying the net zero data and the interim targets can only be done essentially consistent with scientific advice and where the scientific advice states that is permissible and an okay thing to do and still will be consistent with avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.