Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

To come back to the budgets, I have a few questions. The council has told us about bringing in additional gases and extra factors but that does not really address why the decision was made not to look at the equity aspects. As I understand it, there is now a very strong focus on that moment in 2050 and whether or not Ireland will be contributing to global temperature increases at that moment rather than on the decades previous to that point. As has been said, it is not solely about temperatures. There are common but differentiated responsibilities. That is what is in the Paris Agreement. The agreement also has regard to capacity. There is the idea that those who can do more should do more, along with those who have a greater responsibility, which has been outlined.

When the Chair asked, we were told that the council acknowledges climate justice as an issue. It is also narratively acknowledged in the report but it is still not clear how it figures in the calculations, mechanisms and modelling, which seem to be entirely confined to the question of what our contribution to the temperature will be in 2050. The ultimate question is who will be making use of the space we have for emissions on this planet over the next 10 or 20 years and how much of that space will be used. As has been suggested, it would be really useful to be given some sense of how a fair share would be modelled. I do not see how that is incompatible with modelling all of the gases and doing the work on temperature because it is another specific calculation. Could we get something on that? The council also mentioned feasibility. A set of assumptions in respect of feasibility were factored in. If we can factor in feasibility, surely we can factor in fairness to see how it affects the models. It would be useful for the committee to be told what those assumptions were. It was mentioned that a number of assumptions regarding feasibility were included in the model. It would be good to know what they were so we can unpick them.

The council has increased the budget for the next iteration. It was going to be the equivalent of 151 MtCO2eq but it has now gone to 160 MtCO2eq. Why has the budget been increased? It just seems surprising. Perhaps it would be useful to get a model where we only hit 23% by 2040. Such a model would be very useful to us. We do not want to sign off on a fantasy budget. Why increase it so that we are going to be using more?

I have one last thing to raise. Was the United States' exit from the Paris Agreement factored in given that a greater global effort may be needed from all those who are going to act to achieve that ultimate objective, keeping us within the temperatures?