Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the speakers. I wish to elaborate a little further on Professor Buckley's point around the land mapping and whether to write it into legislation. I am not sure if Professor Buckley is familiar with the New Zealand Act. It makes a specific reference to being cognisant of the ecosystems, including marine ecosystems, and biodiversity in its recital but then in its adaptation and its risk assessment, it requires the Minister to take account of any ecological impact. If Professor Buckley is not familiar with it, she might look at it and, perhaps, in her written follow-up response, she might say if she thinks that is something we could work with. It is important to realise that climate action benefits biodiversity, although not always. In this country, we have had a utilitarian approach to nature. Only today we have seen that our forestry programme is actually a net emitter of carbon, so I would be interested to hear if Professor Buckley thinks that New Zealand model could work for us.

Will Dr. Glynn elaborate on the point in his presentation on how the development of carbon capture technologies are already far behind the technology readiness? Do we need to have a sort of cap in the Bill or a limiting of the reliance on technology and have more of a focus on the efficiencies whereby we must reduce the amount of carbon we use in the first place rather than relying on a technology that has yet to catch up?