Dr. Orla Kelleher:

To pick up on the point that Mr. Coghlan was making just now, to clarify the landscape, it speaks to the confusion of having the EU picture and the domestic picture. As Mr. Coghlan just mentioned, the long-term strategy is a requirement both of the governance regulations and of the domestic climate Act. It is called something slightly different to the long-term climate action strategy under the domestic legislation, but nevertheless the requirement is there. The big point is that we are currently missing a key piece of the infrastructure, not only under EU law but also under domestic law. Ideally, the sequencing should have, at the top of the pyramid, the national climate objective. Below that is the long-term strategy. Sitting below that are the carbon budgets. Finally, there is the annually updated climate action plan. That is the sequence. Absent the long-term strategy, we are missing a key ingredient, not just of our EU climate governance picture, but also the domestic piece. Getting that right is so important.

A very innovative thing that this Parliament did with the climate Act was the introduction of section 3(3), which is the requirement for long-term strategies to be consistent not just with Article 2 of the UNFCCC, but also Articles 2 and 4.1 of the Paris Agreement. That is significant because it gives us an opportunity and in fact creates a requirement for the long-term strategy to be consistent with the temperature goals of the Paris Agreement. We need to demonstrate that in our long-term strategy. Our climate Act did something innovative. A requirement is producing this long-term strategy. We need to see the long-term strategy provide this road map to make some kind of fair share contribution to the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement.