Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 9 June 2021

Select Committee on Communications, Climate Action and Environment

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021: Committee Stage (Resumed)

Photo of Jennifer WhitmoreJennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I am concerned that the Minister of State's response indicates a certain rowing back on the understanding when it comes to climate action. We have had significant discussions at pre-legislative scrutiny and within the committee.

The Minister of State has acknowledged that climate action and biodiversity action are one in the same and need to be addressed the same. Climate boundaries are ecological boundaries, which must be recognised. We have had discussions on nature-based solutions and his response clearly indicates why my amendment to incorporate nature-based solutions and a definition of nature-based solutions within this legislation should have happened. It is really unfortunate, and is looking even more unfortunate, that the Government voted my amendment down but I will resubmit it on the next Stage.

We and the Dáil declared a climate and biodiversity crisis which were discussed in parallel because they are so connected. Biodiversity needs to play a big part in the reduction of climate emissions and if it does not then we will have missed an opportunity.

When we respond to climate change and climate emissions we need to be absolutely certain that we do not impact further on our biodiversity or environment. So any actions that are taken must either have no impact on biodiversity or, preferably, enhance biodiversity. We have seen recent examples where trees were planted, which facilitates carbon storage, but they were planted on peat. Therefore, the biodiversity impacts were enormous but there was also an impact on carbon so when landslides happened there was a great deal of carbon emissions from the peat. We cannot separate the two elements. The Minister of State's response gives me cause for concern because it seems that we have now rowed back on this. I ask him to come back to me on it because this is a really important discussion that we need to have.

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