Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the Bill. I also welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Ann Phelan, to the House and acknowledge the work of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Kelly, in introducing this important legislation.

The extreme weather events that have hit Ireland in recent years and which battered our coastline last year and the year before, flooded towns and cities and inundated thousands of acres of farmland are signs that Ireland is experiencing climate change. These events are part of a trend. Each of the past three decades has been warmer than the previous one. The global temperature has been higher each year since 1976 than the 20th century average. Twelve of the 14 warmest years on record since 1880 have been since 2000. The extreme weather events that are hitting Ireland ever more frequently are part of a global pattern. What we are witnessing fits in with the scientific community's projections of what a warming world would be like, except that the projections are becoming a reality even faster than scientists expected. Despite what some may suggest, there is no serious split among climatologists on climate change. Global warming is a reality and is becoming a global crisis.

Today, the national forum on flooding visited Leinster House to discuss with Members the difficulty in getting flood insurance, be it in urban or country locations. The insurance companies are refusing to provide quotes or cover. They are doing this on the basis of climate change. They no longer accept the old given wisdom that a serious flood only happens once in 100 years. It is not even once in 50 years now. According to them, they are seeing a serious flood once or more every decade. Flood insurance is becoming a more serious issue. If the current trend continues, it will be impossible to get the insurance industry to provide any cover where there is a threat of flooding.

Limiting the average global surface temperature increase to 2° Celsius over the pre-industrial average has, since the 1990s, been commonly accepted as the minimum necessary to avoid dangerous climate change. However, the International Energy Agency, IEA, warns that, without more decisive action, we risk passing the 2° Celsius point-of-no-return increase that would make it impossible to prevent dangerous climate change. This would mean a future of food and fresh water shortages, devastating and intensifying weather extremes, coastal inundation, desertification, ocean acidification, mass extinction events, mass migrations of millions from the worst affected areas and conflicts. As to major coastal inundation, recent weeks have witnessed the destruction of the homes and islands of Vanuatu. Keeping below the 2° Celsius limit is feasible and affordable, but the window of opportunity is closing. The longer we delay, the more difficult and expensive it becomes.

Labour's manifesto at the previous general election committed the party in government to producing a climate change Bill that would set out a clear path for tackling climate change in line with our EU 2020 targets. The programme for Government includes that commitment. With this legislation, Ireland will be one of the first states to put a legal obligation on government to develop policies planning for existing and future climate commitments. Ireland's EU 2020 targets to be low carbon and climate resilient are contained in the Bill, as are the EU targets for 2050. The Government has defined what is meant by "low carbon" in the national policy position on climate change as "an 80% reduction in emissions from electricity, buildings and transport and carbon neutrality in agriculture and land use." Including this definition in the Bill will ensure there is no ambiguity in what is meant by "low carbon". I strongly advise that the definition be retained.

The Bill also stipulates that the national mitigation plan should be adopted within 24 months of the legislation's enactment. This timeframe could mean that it would be 2017 before a mitigation plan for reducing emissions was developed for the period 2013-20. Since work is already under way on developing the plan in parallel with this legislation, it would be more appropriate that the plan be adopted within no more than 12 months of enactment, but preferably sooner.

Global warming is a global crisis. Although climate change threatens all countries, it is the world's poorest and most vulnerable nations and their peoples that suffer most and can cope least. We live in a world of plenty, but one that is reaching its environmental limits.

We are struggling to feed a rapidly growing population under a changing climate. Ireland has played a strong and active role internationally in addressing the climate challenge. As part of our EU Presidency in 2013, I worked to ensure that Ireland had a lead in the negotiations for a new framework for global development post-2015, which will include efforts to address climate change. This Irish Government initiated a process on climate change that involved three EU Commissioners, humanitarian aid Commissioner Georgieva, development commissioner Piebalgs and environment Commissioner Potocnik, probably the first time ever that three Commissioners came together and they agreed the process on humanitarian aid, development, climate and the environment.

With the millennium development goals due to expire in 2015 and new goals due to come into place in September this year, the Irish Presidency achieved a joint EU position on the new global development framework, including a Common Position on the impact of climate change on development. By listening to the experiences of people in developing countries, the links between hunger, undernutrition and climate change are obvious. These people must endure unpredictable weather patterns in their struggle to feed their families. Damaged crops and less food push millions more people into poverty and hunger. As former President Mary Robinson powerfully stated at a major international conference organised in Dublin during the Irish Presidency in 2013, climate change is also a justice issue, as it undermines a host of internationally recognised human rights, has a larger impact on the poor and vulnerable and requires disproportionate action by developing countries.

The new integrated approach of the Rio+20 environmental goals with the post-2015 millennium development goals was combined into a single framework by the 28 EU member states under the Irish Presidency and was agreed. At the UN Summit in New York in 2013, this framework was adopted as the new way forward by the global community. This included countries such as China and India as well as developing countries in the African, Caribbean and Pacific regions which had never previously been engaged in climate change issues. This integrated approach provides a whole new and very important dimension to climate change. With Ireland’s strong track record in promoting climate justice, I believe this legislation would be enhanced by the incorporation of the principles of climate justice.

It is hard to persuade some of the major countries of the world, particularly developing countries, to engage with climate change because they see the developed countries as having had decades and maybe centuries of development in which they took no steps to deal with emissions or problems relating to carbon. They feel that climate change measures are an imposition on them because they have only been developing their countries and their industries for a few years. One way to engage the international community was to do it partly under climate change and partly under the development umbrella. All countries are anxious to ensure that international development proceeds on a sustainable basis. Climate change in this context cannot be separated from sustainability or from development and humanitarian issues because they are the way to engage countries that would otherwise not be prepared to engage in reducing emissions.

It is a complex issue, not just scientifically but in terms of international relations. In this legislation we have begun the process of tackling climate change and meeting European Union standards but we still have a major role to play in ensuring mechanisms are in place to allow the world community to engage in climate change measures which they do not see as threatening their economic development. Some of that work was done during the Irish Presidency and there is a lot more to be done in the years to come. I commend the legislation.

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