Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tuigim é sin ach tá am againn.

Climate change is happening without a doubt, despite some deniers in this Chamber who believe it is not. I think we can no longer ignore the fact that not only is it happening, but people are suffering. My country, and other countries that are causing this and have the biggest footprint, are not suffering like others are suffering. We have to take every opportunity to say that and put it on the record. In my opinion, this is the last Dáil that has the change to tackle climate change before it is too late.

This Bill signals genuine global leadership in tackling climate change. I thank Deputy Pringle, the Department and the other parties for co-operating in this regard. It represents a unique opportunity to ethically invest public money and to send out a strong message about Ireland's intention to meet its international obligations, a point to which I will return. We are miserably failing to meet our legal obligations. I have just stepped out of the Committee of Public Accounts. The NTMA is before the committee today. Under that agency's remit comes the ISIF and NTMA representatives have just confirmed that since their last appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts, it has divested itself of investments in 16 entities. That is a very positive development. The NTMA has done that since its last appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts because of this initiative by Deputy Pringle and the Department. I welcome that.

We know about the Paris Agreement, to which Ireland eventually signed up on 22 April 2016. It is the first universal, legally-binding global climate deal. It is a global action plan to restrict the impact of carbon emissions on global warming. As we all know, the aim is to hold the increase in the global average temperature to below 2° Celsius above pre-industrial levels and to limit the temperature increase to 1.5° Celsius. Before signing the agreement, we passed the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act and we passed the mitigation plan afterwards. However, we are failing absolutely to comply with our very basic obligations. Our commitment, as part of the collective EU pledge, is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the short term - that is, by 2020 - by 20% below the 2005 level. The medium-term target is to reduce emissions by 30% of the 2005 level by 2030 and the long-term target is to reduce them by 80% to 95% by 2050. Ireland will be one of only two countries to miss out on the short-term 2020 targets. It is pretty clear that we will not meet the mid-term targets either. According to the Climate Change Advisory Council, which is a good body - that it was established was a positive step but we are simply ignoring it - current climate policy means that Ireland will miss its agreed 2020 emissions reduction target by a substantial margin without a major new policy and measures. The council has indicated that we will also miss out on the 2030 EU target and the 2050 target by very large margins. This is the language of the Climate Change Advisory Council, it is not mine. In addition, last month the EPA projected that Ireland's emissions will decrease by just 1% by 2020 and has called for a decisive move away from fossil fuels. This is certainly a step in that direction. In addition, Ireland is the third highest carbon emitter in the EU. Ireland came second lowest - just ahead of Poland - in recent rankings on where EU countries stand.

My time is limited but there are things which must be highlighted. The Climate Action Network has pointed out that we have failed to join the group of progressive EU member states calling for increased EU climate ambition. It has also pointed out that we face €500 million in fines. There has been a dispute about whether it is €500 million or €400 million rather than about why we are failing to meet our targets. As the UN report notes, the other cost is that the global average cost of climatic disasters - including floods, storms, droughts and heatwaves - is estimated to have risen substantially from $65 billion in the period 1985 to 1994 to $154 billion in the period 2005 to 2014, an increase of 40%.

It is interesting that the Department of Finance is sponsoring this legislation and not the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. It is also interesting that the Citizens' Assembly set and came up with very practical suggestions. I have to put on the record the fact that I was one of those who was very sceptical when the Citizens' Assembly was set up. I have to say that I was wrong. It has done Trojan work. The challenge now is to implement the assembly's recommendations, which, of course, we are not doing. We have set up another committee and we were going to hear all over again what the Citizens' Assembly stated. We simply do not have time to do so. I thank Deputy Pringle for bringing forward the Bill.

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