Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this amendment. I regret that all my previous amendments were ruled out of order on the basis of cost.

There will be a huge financial cost to the citizens of this State, including farmers, if we continue going down this road and do not address the climate change issue. In addition, there is an issue of climate justice, not just for developing Third World countries but also here due to the effects it will have on producers and those living in areas prone to flooding. We cannot keep building higher flood defences and hope that sea levels will not breach them. We must deal with the issue at source. My amendment No. 22 would compel the Government to have regard to the principle of climate change justice for developing countries and countries vulnerable to climate change. That is very important.

It is worth looking at what was agreed by the all-party committee back in the summer of 2013. Since Ireland, on a per capitabasis, has one of the highest greenhouse gas emission rates, its responsibility to those impacted by climate change was emphasised by several submissions. The joint committee heard from several witnesses that it is appropriate to include recognition of this in the legislation as a principle, which should be considered in framing the national and sectoral roadmaps.

In fulfilment of commitments made under the Copenhagen accord, member states committed to providing €7.2 billion of fast-track start finance over the period 2010 to 2012. This was to enable developing countries to protect themselves better against severe weather events and other adverse effects associated with climate change and to develop their economies along sustainable pathways.

Central to the issue of climate change and climate justice is the participation of developing countries in the green climate fund agreed at Cancún as a successor to the fast-track start finance instrument. The joint committee welcomed the commitments given by the former Minister, Phil Hogan, that Ireland would play its full role as a member state in supporting this initiative. To this end, the joint committee stressed the importance that such finance should be additional to Ireland's overseas aid budget and not at the expense of it. The Bill should provide for the establishment of a national green climate fund within or alongside the environment fund to receive moneys from carbon tax, emission-trading-system auctioning and similar sources. That money should be used to support climate mitigation and adoption in developing countries.

The joint committee said the fund would also be used to support Ireland's contribution to the green climate fund currently now established through the UN framework convention on climate change. That is what the all-party committee drafted in July 2013, with Professor John Sweeney, after listening carefully to submissions from some who still believe the earth is flat and others who wanted us to go much further than the report's recommendations. This was a compromise document but is a good way forward.

Climate justice must be writ large throughout the Bill, otherwise we will not be doing our own population any favours, nor those of countries that are only now starting to develop industrially. They have put a very light carbon footprint on the face of the earth, much lighter than ours. Ireland is a huge producer of carbon emissions, so we must start doing things more sustainably, but that does not mean that we have to close down the country.

A number of later amendments deal with prudence in undertaking agricultural production. I ask the Minister of State to accept amendment No. 22 in the spirit of the joint committee's document, which the former Minister, Commissioner Phil Hogan, gave a firm commitment to address. The earth is a small place so this is an important matter. As a trading nation, it is important for us that such countries will develop. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and ignore what is happening to countries that are vulnerable to coastal flooding. We cannot allow huge areas of their coastline to be washed away with chunks of their GDP being eaten up in providing flood prevention measures, not to mention the catastrophe on a human scale. If their economies are wrecked in trying to deal with climate change, including the resettlement of people inland, they obviously will not have the money to trade with us. Working with the Third World and building climate justice into the equation puts us in a moral position to trade with developing countries. It will also enable them to have more cash to buy our goods and services.

These matters are inter-linked so the pieces of the jigsaw must fit together. If we do not deal with climate justice many of the jigsaw pieces will be missing so the centre will not hold globally, either economically, socially or financially. I therefore ask the Minister of State to accept my amendment in that spirit.

See this speech in context