Brendan Ryan (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Fitzmaurice. The Government and the Opposition need to acknowledge that Ireland's engagement with the climate change agenda has been mediocre at best. We like to look down on the Americans in respect of this issue. We do not have a major problem here with a lobby of climate change deniers, such as there is in America. Our problem is different. If the American people did appreciate the reality of climate change, there is no doubt they would demand that something be done about it. In Ireland, we see the problem, accept it as fact, but do nothing, or, if not nothing, then not enough. Given the science of climate change and the global temperature tipping point, not doing enough is as bad as doing nothing.

On the one hand, we accept that the world is warming and that human activity is the dominant cause. The urgent need to address climate change is largely accepted in political debate and among the general public. On the other hand, however, our record in achieving ambitious targets, within tight timeframes, remains poor. As a result, we are most unlikely to meet our legally-binding greenhouse gas reduction targets by 2020 and we will become open to sanction for breach of EU rules.

The Citizens' Assembly report is proof positive that, unlike their counterparts in the USA, members of the general public here are way ahead of politicians and the Civil Service in their thinking. Some 98% of the members of the Citizens' Assembly recommended that climate change should be at the centre of policy-making. A total of 100% of them recommended that the State should take a leadership role in addressing climate change and 80% said that they would be willing to pay higher taxes on carbon-intensive activities. In three years' time, however, this State will be a law-breaker. The only question will be the extent of our liability. The fines may be of the order of at least €450 million, a shocking amount of money to hand over for our failure to plan for what has been coming down the road for so long. We will by then be faced with a new round of reduction targets for 2030 and beyond and will already be considerably in arrears and desperately trying to catch up.

Under the EU climate and energy package, the target set for Ireland is that our greenhouse gas emissions should, by 2020, be 20% below their 2005 values. The fact is that we let the recession do the heavy lifting for us. Emissions peaked in 2001, with reductions in eight of the past ten years. The reductions were entirely due to reduced economic activity rather than the impact of any Government policy for permanent remedial measures. Just as we lowered our emissions during the economic crisis, now that the economy is picking up again, they are once again increasing in line with economic and employment growth. This is while domestic construction is still in the doldrums. Imagine what the figures will be like when this Government finally gets around to building some houses.

Our emissions are increasing rather than decreasing. Every reasonable projection for 2020 shows that we will miss our reduction targets by a country mile. Today, Ireland emits more greenhouse gases than the 400 million poorest people on earth. Of the top ten per capitagreenhouse gas emission polluters in the OECD, Ireland ranks ninth. The EPA figures for 2016 show a 3.5% increase. Broken down, this shows that agriculture emissions increased by 2.7%, transport emissions by 3.7% and energy industry emissions by 6.1%. There were significant increases across all of the main sectors and an overall trend of rising emissions. National emissions have now increased by 7% in just two years, indicating that we have not managed to decouple emissions from economic growth. Even taking account of all policies and measures in the pipeline, we will not meet our 2020 targets. In other words, full implementation of all Government policies and measures, including targets for energy efficiency in our homes and businesses and increasing renewable fuel use in transport and heating, will not be enough. It gets worse. The policies and measures currently in place will not see us comply with EU law and meet our current targets. New obligations for Ireland to reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more during the years 2021 to 2030 are under negotiation.

The Government back-pedals. It argues that our 2020 target, unanimously approved here, was "unscientific” all along and was never achievable. It argues that we should not be told to curb our efficient agricultural practices and see them moved to less efficient parts of the world. This argument ignores the inconvenient fact that the projected growth in beef and dairy exports is posited on a change in Asian feeding habits that would, of itself, lead to increased carbon emissions regardless of from where the food comes.

It is clear that, during successive administrations, the much-vaunted whole-of-Government approach was simply non-existent. There was no joined-up thinking and no overall Government vision and commitment. The only sector that was close to achieving its target is electricity, for which the Department of Communications, Climate Change and Environment is responsible. However, that has gone into reverse, perversely, because one aspect of Government policy permits the ESB to burn more coal at Moneypoint, now that coal is cheaper, even though this completely contradicts another aspect of that policy.

It appears that the State is also facing serious domestic legal challenges, grounded on a newly declared constitutional right to a sound environment. While the EPA's annual report serves for the rest of us as a wake-up call, the Minister, Deputy Naughten, and his colleagues give every impression that they have slept through the alarm again.

See this speech in context