Mr. Jonathan Church:

I agree with Dr. Muinzer on the role of the Legislature. There are obvious parts of the Bill where the role of the Legislature could be rebalanced relative to the Executive. I refer, for example, to the preparation of the climate action plan. The Bill envisages a process whereby the Government approves the climate action plan and it is simply laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. As far as I can see, the approval of the Oireachtas is not needed. Requiring a parliamentary vote, either when the plan is first prepared or when it is improved, as might be judged necessary by the Climate Change Advisory Council or the Joint Committee on Climate Action, could be a very important change to the constitutional balance. It could help to ensure a pressure on the Government to perform to a certain standard. There are a few provisions which could be changed to give the Parliament a vote rather than an observer role.

A very good point was made about the risk of litigation going both ways. The clearer the law is, the lower the likelihood of litigation. There is much leeway for arguments to be made in the courts. Reducing this would mean that elements who wish for less ambition would have less chance of slowing things down through legal arguments. Some four or five years ago a climate sceptic who was then the UK Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs floated the idea of amending the 2050 target in the Climate Change Act 2008 to zero, effectively switching the Act off. He may have seen that there was an opportunity to do that in accordance with the Act. The language did not tie the Act to the targets sufficiently robustly. That is an example of how litigation can go both ways. It demonstrates the fact that clearer language is better.