Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

This is a very important amendment because when we are talking about where we are going and where we want to go, we must take account of where we have come from. The amendment seeks to insert specific reference to possible contributions from different sectors of the economy and different sources of emissions. This is critical because performance is uneven. If one looks at the European Commission report on Ireland earlier this year, it graphically makes the point and sets out why we need to specify the different areas. That report stated that agricultural emissions in Ireland were expected to remain stable between 2005 and 2020. Although this was technically accurate, the statement glossed over the fact that agricultural greenhouse gas emissions had fallen by 9% by 2011 but were now increasing because of Food Harvest 2020 due to the expansion of livestock numbers, particularly dairy cattle, which meant that emissions were already up 4% in the past two years and were predicted to rise up to 2025. Clearly, this is one sector of the economy.

The report dealt with emissions in transport which, again, we are trying to specify here. It stated in respect of transport, which is the second largest non-emissions trading system sector in terms of emissions, that emissions are expected to increase significantly between 2005 and 2020 due to the lack of public transport. That has not been addressed. It looked at the continuing use of coal and increased domestic peat use that has meant that domestic heat carbon emissions rose by 2.6% in 2013 over 2012 levels, with no strategy in place to achieve high levels of household insulation and so on that would deal with this and allow us to switch from coal to low-carbon sources. We need to specify by sector. It is very important and contributes to a more bottom-up and meaningful approach to this. It is critical that we would do this and it feeds into the other discussion we had about who decides about this. It is much more democratic and accountable to specify it in the Bill.

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