Finian McGrath (Dublin North Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak on the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill. I welcome the Bill as it gives us an opportunity to look at climate change in depth and deal with the urgent need to do something to save the planet and improve the quality of life for everyone on the planet, particularly in this country.

It is important to wake up and listen to those working on the front line who are dealing with climate change. During recent weeks I had the honour of meeting many of those people and I was extremely impressed by their passion, commitment and sheer professionalism and knowledge of the facts about the reality of what is happening in this country and internationally. We need an open and honest debate on climate change. It should never be a question of urban versus rural, as some Deputies appear to think. All sides have an honest view, but we must base our decisions on facts. Let us stick to the facts.

With regard to the impact of climate change, Clontarf in my constituency regularly has a major problem with flooding and rising tides. This is a huge issue for many of us. We must ensure flood defences are environmentally friendly but also friendly to the local community. On a number of occasions we have had the sad situation whereby the people of Donnycarney have suffered severely from major flooding. Independent Councillor Damien O'Farrell has had a major influence, and flood defence measures are being put in place. We are all working very closely together.

Over the past 10,000 years a stable climate, due to stable natural CO₂levels, enabled human agricultural civilisation to emerge and thrive, but our very success has put this at risk. Rapid global warming resulting in climate disruption has a simple cause: every incremental addition of CO₂or other greenhouse gas to the atmosphere traps a corresponding additional amount of solar energy in the earth's atmosphere, land and ocean; this warming is irreversible in human timescales and once emitted the CO₂levels remain raised for hundreds of thousands of years. Warming will only stop some decades after net human emissions have fallen to zero. Limiting climate damage requires immediate, deep and sustained year on year cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The problem for modern human civilisation, which depends on large-scale burning of fossil fuels for energy, thereby releasing CO₂, is that at current emission rates the remaining CO₂global carbon budget will be exhausted within as little as 15 to 30 years. There is enough carbon stored in proven reserves of peat, coal, oil and gas to result in ultimate global warming of 6° C or even more, a level that would be utterly incompatible with organised human civilisation.

A combination of fossil fuel burning, livestock agriculture and deforestation has already resulted in approximately 8° C warming averaged over the entire globe since industrialisation. Continuing the current pathway of ever-increasing emissions would mean a rise of 4° C is entirely possible as early as 2100. On this dangerous track it is quite certain that within 85 years every part of the world will be subject to severe and destructive climate disruption. The only likely way for humanity to avoid this is to bring net emissions to zero before the 2° C global carbon budget limit is exceeded. Nature does not do debt forgiveness. Future generations cannot undo our damage. This means massive rapid changes in consumption patterns and energy production. Global society must mobilise rapidly for a completely unprecedented collective effort. The biggest question for humanity is how to divide the 2° C carbon budget equitably between nations and between ourselves and future generations. The greatest responsibility to act for change and act fast lies with those wealthy individuals, nations and institutions whose preferential development in the past century was achieved at the price of polluting the shared global atmosphere. No person, community or country can step aside from this challenge. Ireland could and should lead, but we must start now.

With regard to the weaknesses of the Bill, it fails to provide a numeric target for emissions reductions. This is a fundamental flaw as it means there is little concrete direction for the coming years. Civil society organisations are not alone in calling for clear targets. Businesses also point to the need for a target to provide confidence and drive investment. Finland, Denmark and France recently announced the introduction of climate and energy legislation, each setting clear targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Finland's law sets an 80% target for 2050 while the Danish law sets a 40% target for 2020. This is double the EU 2020 target. France's energy transition bill seeks to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and by 75% by 2050.

Another issue I raise with regard to the legislation is the independence of the climate change advisory council. The Bill proposes the establishment of a national expert advisory council on climate change, to be tasked with giving advice to the Government on climate change matters. The joint committee recommended the climate change advisory council be modelled on the Fiscal Advisory Council in that its independence should be prescribed in the Bill and its members should be independent of State or stakeholder interest. Instead the Bill provides for a body of no more than 11 members, four of whom represent State bodies, namely, the EPA, the SEAI, Teagasc and the ESRI, in an ex officiocapacity. The Bill does not specify that the council must be independent in the exercise of its functions, as is the case for the Fiscal Advisory Council. While the Bill does provide for the advisory council to publish its reports the time period is anything from 30 to 90 days, which is too long a period for the purpose of public debate and transparency.

The Bill does not provide for climate justice. Ireland has a responsibility towards the poorest people in developing countries who already feel the impact of climate change, although they did not play a part in creating the crisis. The Bill is about mapping out a strong and sustainable future for Ireland. It is also about ensuring that Ireland lives up to its global responsibility. As a nation which has benefited from our development to date we need to do our fair share, and I emphasise this. The Government has repeatedly stated its commitment to climate justice as a principle guiding its engagement on climate change. Inclusion of the principle of climate justice in the legislation would provide an opportunity to realise this.

I have other issues with regard to the content of the Bill. The measures contained in the previous five year action plan, the national climate change strategy, were designed to meet Ireland's Kyoto commitment from 2008 to 2012 of limiting total emissions in the period covered to 314 million tonnes of CO₂equivalent. All future five-year action plans should equally indicate the total projected national emissions in the period covered under the plan. Given the already recognised significant potential for climate mitigation by management of the carbon in Irish soil, particularly in wetlands, the Bill should include soil carbon management in the considerations to be taken into account in the national mitigation plan.

One of the purposes of the Bill is to provide a platform for as much cross-party and independent support as possible for climate action given the scale of the transformation needed in the coming decades to contain climate change. The five-year action plans should not only be adopted by the Government but should be approved by a resolution of both Houses after debate in each Chamber.

These are my main concerns about the Bill. I urge the Government and the Minister to listen to these concerns because people are very concerned about this issue. We want to ensure we have a healthy and safe planet, but we also want to ensure we have a healthy, safe and environmentally-friendly country.

See this speech in context