Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

By making informed choices now, we can reduce risks for future generations and ourselves, and help communities adapt to climate change. However, just paying lip service to the problem is not going to make it go away. That is why the Government has committed to legislating in this critical area.

Legislation is the best way to make sure that all Departments across Government and all Departments across time take climate change seriously and take action consistently. We have to hard-wire action and accountability on climate change into our political thinking and system. In response, the programme for Government committed to publishing a climate change Bill to "provide certainty surrounding government policy and provide a clear pathway for emissions reductions, in line with negotiated EU 2020 targets".

This is the first time that a coherent and legislative response has been developed to combat the threat of climate change. The Bill will be one of the most important to have passed through the Dáil and the Seanad for years. It represents the culmination of lengthy and wide-ranging consultations on climate legislation over the past couple of years, including extensive consideration by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht.

I chair that committee.

The principal function of the Bill is to provide for the approval of plans by the Government for the purpose of pursuing the transition to a low carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy by the year 2050. In particular, the Bill provides for the approval, every five years, of successive national low carbon transition and mitigation plans. These plans will specify the policy measures required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, having regard to our EU and international mitigation obligations. The Bill also provides for the approval of successive national climate change adaptation frameworks, which will specify the national strategy for the application of adaptation measures in different sectors and by local authorities to reduce the State's vulnerability to the negative effects of climate change.

The Bill provides for the establishment of a national expert advisory council on climate change to provide advice and recommendations to relevant Ministers and the Government on the making and approval of these plans. Moreover, the Bill provides that relevant Ministers will make a statement to Dáil Éireann annually providing updates on progress in respect of the implementation of approved greenhouse gas mitigation and adaptation policy measures. The impetus for and importance of the Bill stem, in part, from our current greenhouse gas mitigation targets under EU legislation up to the year 2020 and likely future mitigation targets up to the year 2030 and beyond. Although the Bill is not a panacea for the very challenging targets that we face, it should assist us in narrowing the distance to reaching the set target by 2020 and stand us in good stead thereafter.

In addition, although the Bill does not contain any numerical mitigation targets, it will function to statutorily underpin the national climate change policy position agreed by the Government last April. This position sets out a quantitative vision of low carbon transition by the year 2050. This is vital, as the low carbon agenda is one which the EU and the international process is pursuing in any event. This legislation sets us apart as it will make Ireland one of the few EU members states that have adopted climate change legislation to date and one of the first EU countries to put a legal obligation on its government to develop policies to plan for existing and future climate change commitments. This Bill has been a long time in the making. We have provided a sound basis for ensuring that we strike the right balance between ambition and practicality.

In the end there were many great disasters and pities of the last Government, which is now characterised by the economic collapse, the Government's downfall, spiralling unemployment, the blanket bank guarantee and the collapse of the banking system. One of the greater tragedies of that Administration, regrettably, despite the laudable intentions of the Green Party through involvement by a Green Party environment Minister, was that it did not get to bring in the climate change legislation to which it had committed. However, one of the ironic aspects of the economic recession is that it has allowed us to pursue an agenda such as this. During the boom, as pressing as the issue was, it was very hard to give it political oxygen- no pun intended. It was very difficult to get it on the agenda as a popular news item or to get it on the political agenda at a serious level. This is a great difficulty which has surrounded the issue of climate change in recent years.

In my capacity as Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht, I wish to acknowledge the huge role that members of our committee, Members from both Houses and from all parties and none, played. One of them, Deputy Humphreys, is in the House today in a ministerial capacity. We sat three years ago, and in particular two years ago, through very fine weather on non-sitting days in the committee rooms in the basement, and we heard excellent testimony from academics, scientists, employer organisations, environmental groups, farming organisations, and all of the people who have been lobbying around this issue for one reason or another. They all got a very fair hearing and it is a testament to political reform that our committee system, which is an adjunct to Parliament, now has the opportunity to play such a pivotal role in developing critical legislation by virtue of its public hearings and consultations. The committee hearings went on for weeks and months. We eventually launched our report and won widespread praise and support for it from the groups which were involved in some shape or form. That body of work took us about two years to initiate and to complete.

All too often and for obvious reasons, governments will be criticised for what they did not do or what they said they would do and never did. When we take the economics out of the last number of years and look at the other issues then, along with the marriage equality referendum, this legislation represents a significant achievement for my party in government. I am very proud of that. I am also very proud, in an apolitical fashion, of the members of the Oireachtas joint committee from all parties and none and from both Houses who played a role. To bring about legislation which requires widespread public support, a process must be initiated that gives people a role and an impetus to deliver into it. Sometimes when dealing with issues such as these - there will be an example of it in the House later this evening - much of the terminology we use to advance or articulate our cause will not sell newspapers. It will not feature on the six o'clock news, the nine o'clock news or "Morning Ireland". This does not mean that it is any less important and that we should not do it. It is essential we do. To get it to this level is historic.

I was slightly dismayed, when we discussed the report of the committee in this House, that there were two Members, in particular, who spoke against it. Neither of them came to our committee. They never made submissions to our committee or made public pronouncements on the issue of climate change. They then decided to criticise the report for what they thought it did not contain. I was at a loss to find out in particular what elements in the Bill they thought should be included, aside from their rehearsed statements. They simply decided to criticise. They are not members of Deputy Ferris's party.

We are now at a critical juncture where we have to acknowledge the profound development in terms of climate policy and putting it on a statutory legal basis. The previous Administration, with all its faults and failings, did not get around to doing this and that was a great pity. It will be remembered for its failure to address the issue. However, we have a responsibility in this country to play our part on the world stage and we are doing it. That is something in which all legislators in this House and in Seanad Éireann can take pride. Trying to politically articulate an area such as this, which is not universally popular or sexy enough to dominate media headlines, is a very important initiative. I wish to acknowledge the role played by the Minister, Deputy Kelly, in bringing this to the forefront of his ministry, a ministry that has been dogged by controversial issues of one hue or another over the past 12 months. We are at a critical juncture in dealing with this issue.

Much was said about targets in the Bill. During the process of the committee hearings, we established with academic experts and people with expertise at various levels that we are bound by European targets. The absence of numerical targets in this Bill is not a cause for concern. When European law changes, we are bound and obligated by that law. As we move into another sphere in advancing the issue of climate change, Ireland will take its place as one of the few nations in the world that legislated for climate change. This is something of which we should take stock.

There will be a political requirement on Ministers, whoever is in the next Government, to come into this House every year and to produce sectoral maps and policy on climate. Although it may not happen before then we should nevertheless consider in the coming ten or 11 months what will be involved in this. The legislation will be on the Statute Book and that is something of which we as Members of this House should all be proud.

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