Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

Legislation, regulation and behavioural change are at the heart of what is required to tackle climate change and I welcome this timely second report from the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security.

In the Seanad last week I said I appreciate the considerable amount of work that went into producing the report and the importance of having a cross-party perspective to influence and inform the development of future policy and legislation here. This is particularly valuable in encouraging and building public support for strong climate change legislation. I had the privilege of being on the Joint Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security and would like to put on the record of the House the commitment Deputies such as Deputies McManus and Coveney have given to the committee over the past three years. A cross-party approach is required if we are to get buy-in for the action required.

In the past year the wider interest in climate change within the developed world has slipped to a significant degree. Gone is the high profile that global warming had in the national and international media in the run up to the Copenhagen conference in December last year. Gone are the compelling news stories and feature articles that appeared in the print media and the accessible and very effective documentary programmes on television. Above all, I regret to say, that gone also is the general expectation of agreement on a new ground-breaking international treaty this year to succeed the Kyoto protocol.

Within this vacuum, despite the overwhelming international scientific consensus and empirical evidence, we have seen the rise in the media of so-called climate change scepticism, which is clear proof if ever it was needed that complex and inconvenient truths are very often vulnerable to simple lies. Why has that wider interest and attention slipped so dramatically? Why are we not supposed to be as engaged on global warming matters now as we were this time last year? What do we propose to do about it? These are real and important questions and the joint committee's report serves as another timely and important reminder that the threat from climate change remains as great today as it was last year and the year before.

Despite the current domestic and international economic problems, climate change is still the greatest medium and long-term challenge facing the world. Earlier this year new data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies showed that 2009 was, despite an unreasonably cool winter in much of the northern hemisphere, the second warmest year globally since records began in 1880. I heard Commissioner Hedegaard say she believes this year will be the warmest year we have had on record which, if it is true, is a very sobering fact.

2009 was only a fraction of a degree cooler than 2005, the hottest year on record, and tied with a cluster of other years, 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007, as the second warmest year since record keeping began. In other words, the past decade was the warmest decade ever recorded. Globally, we have seen the impacts of climate change - massive flooding in countries such as Pakistan and unprecedented heat waves in Russia. In Ireland, within the past year we have witnessed some of the most severe weather events ever experienced, including unprecedented flooding and cold spells, which have resulted in major economic and social costs.

However, Ireland's geographic location currently insulates us to a large degree from the impacts of climate change. Many millions of people, particularly poor people who contributed the least to the problems of climate change, are already coping with the impacts of global warming and bearing the brunt of its impacts. One need only look at the state of agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa to see that there is a real crisis which is no doubt influenced by the impacts of climate change. Whether it be droughts, to increasing floods, to lower agricultural productivity or to more frequent and severe heat waves and storms, many rightly fear that matters will only get worse.

Climate change is also a significant human rights issue. As the former UN Commissioner and recent founder of the new Climate Justice Foundation, former President Mary Robinson, has stated in the past, the negative impacts on people of changes in climate do not always involve horrific headlines and images of hurricanes, floods or refugee camps. More commonly, they will be cumulative and unspectacular. Those who are already poor and vulnerable will continue to be disproportionately affected. Carbon emissions from industrialised countries have human and environmental consequences. As a result, global warming has already begun to affect the fulfilment of human rights, and to the extent that polluting greenhouse gases continue to be released by large industrial countries, the basic human rights of millions of the world's poor to life, security, food, health and shelter will continue to be violated.

The urgency of mobilising an effective global response to climate change demands consensus at all levels, from local to wider international level. Primary legislation is a hugely significant step in terms of underpinning our commitment and determination and cross-party consensus on key elements of the legislation will serve to reinforce that signal for stakeholders and observers.

In seeking to keep a sharp focus on climate change in Ireland, we must aim to keep it above political point-scoring and tactics. I am happy to respond to the motion on that basis and I look forward to hearing the other views across the House.

There are two clear and understandable reasons the wider public interest and attention slipped so dramatically. The first is the global economic downturn and the fall-out from the international banking crisis. The immediacy of both the issues and the required responses have consumed attention around the world. This fall-off in public interest may have created the impression that the climate change agenda has slipped in terms of priority and action but that is not the case as far as the Government is concerned. While the economic situation may be dominating media interest, work on the climate change commitments in the programme for Government continues to be progressed as a matter of priority.

I have heard it said that in these challenging economic times we cannot afford the green agenda. Nothing could be further from the truth. If one looks at the new jobs that are being created in Ireland and the impetus and momentum internationally on new job creation, it is the green collar economy that will provide the jobs of the future. I recently read Van Jones's book entitled "The Green Collar Economy", and we are already seeing much of what he describes in action here in Ireland. Whether that be in renewable energy, the smarter travel programme, changes in the way in which we look at agriculture, there are strong signs that employment improvements are being found within the low-carbon sector.

I would ask can we afford not to address climate change. The Stern review prepared for the UK Government that forms the economic analysis for the UK Climate Change Act 2008 estimates that the cost of inaction on climate change significantly outweighs the expected cost of co-ordinated global action. Without effort to tackle climate change, the review predicts that the loss of GDP from climate change could cost the global economy significantly more than the global cost of action to stabilise atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases.

Furthermore, such a view is hugely short-sighted and potentially damaging for a small open economy with a strong focus on high-end inward investment such as Ireland. It also ignores Ireland's other major resource challenge - peak oil and Ireland's overwhelming dependence on imported fossil fuel energy. Just this week the International Energy Agency published its annual World Energy Outlook. It projects that crude oil prices will rise from €60 per barrel in 2009 to €113 per barrel in 2035 and oil demand will continue to grow steadily with all of the net growth in demand coming from non-OECD countries, almost half from China alone. Addressing climate change and peak oil are two sides of the same coin.

To have a sustainable economy, we must first have a sustainable environment. There is now a widespread international consensus that the development of resource-efficient and green technologies will be the major economic driver of the 21st century. As countries worldwide sought to boost their economies in the economic crisis through stimulus packages, there was a clear pattern of investment being directed towards infrastructure for less polluting transport modes, such as public transport, intelligent traffic management systems, low-carbon energy production, smart electricity grids and clean transport and energy-related research and development. Clear signs of transition towards a low carbon economy are emerging across the world, with countries attracted to the greener option because of its potential to create large numbers of new jobs. For example, while Europe was for a long time the world leader, the 2010 Renewable Energy Attractiveness Index now cites the US, and particularly those states with renewable portfolio standards, and China as the best investment opportunity for renewable energy. The global green-technology sector is expected to grow at 10% per annum over the medium to long term. In the context of securing national economic recovery, Ireland can ill afford to be left behind.

Unless we face up to our environmental challenges, Ireland cannot hope to meet its economic objectives. Climate change is the most significant environmental challenge facing us today - I wold say it is the greatest challenge facing mankind - and urgent and decisive action is required if we are to avert its worst impacts. We cannot afford to overlook or defer our own response and our role in supporting the case for agreement on a comprehensive global response.

The second reason the wider focus has slipped is the outcome of the Copenhagen conference. The heightened hopes and expectations of so many people were dashed by the failure of the process to deliver a legally-binding agreement that would trigger the comprehensive global response to climate change that is so urgently required. Just a couple of weeks ago, I sat down with Mr. Yvo de Beor and discussed the reasons for the failure of Copenhagen.

The Copenhagen Accord was a poor substitute for the anticipated new treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol. In fairness, the accord contained some important provisions, particularly on the objective of limiting the increase in global average temperature to 2°C above pre-industrial levels and on financial support for developing countries. However, it is not a legally binding instrument and its existence adds an extra layer of complexity and challenge to the international agenda.

Let us look ahead to COP 16. The immediate priority for the 194 parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is to pursue a programme of work to ensure real and substantive progress at the 16th conference of the parties which will get underway later this month in Cancun, Mexico. I hope there will be cross-party consensus that we can have representation at ministerial level in Mexico and I look forward to taking the matter further with the Opposition parties.

I want to see a high level of ambition for the Cancun conference, a level much closer to that which the EU set for the Copenhagen conference last year. However, I recognise the need for compromise in order to allow the process to recover from the disappointment of Copenhagen. It is now widely recognised that a new international treaty cannot be finalised at Cancun but I believe the parties can, and must, re-invigorate the process and take a significant incremental step forward. Such a step might constitute a set of decisions on key elements of the agenda that are already mature, and agreement on a programme of work to finalise a new treaty text as quickly as possible thereafter.

That would establish a realistic prospect of a comprehensive agreement at the following conference in South Africa in 2011 but it would leave just one year to mobilise the new treaty in order to avoid a gap when the Kyoto Protocol expires in December 2012.

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