Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill. On a personal note, I congratulate the Minister. I know what it is taken for him to get the Bill to this point and I know it is a major milestone for him. I also acknowledge the work done by the Committee on Climate Action, chaired by Deputy Leddin. We did serious analysis and listened to the experts. I believe the work we did has strengthened the Bill. The discussions we had with the experts did not take place in private, as was stated earlier in the debate. The climate committee will continue to work on this legislation and on these issues. I invite other Deputies to attend those meetings so that when they are talking to their constituents, they can be armed with the facts and not mislead people over the impact of this Bill on communities.

We need to look at this Bill in the context of what has happened this week. This week the World Meteorological Organization announced that 2020 was the third hottest year on record. Next year, it is forecast that emissions will experience the second highest rise since records began. The UN Secretary General has said we are standing on the edge of the abyss when it comes to climate change. The question for us today is: is this Bill enough to pull us back from that edge? Is it strong enough? Is it ambitious enough? I do not believe it is; I believe we can go much further as do the Social Democrats.

We need to dispel the myth that this revised Bill will be the most progressive in the world in implementing targets in primary legislation. Denmark has set a target to reduce emissions by 70% by 2030 in legislation, while the UK has committed to putting in place a 78% target by 2035. We are no longer progressive; in fact, we are behind the curve on this. A target of net zero emissions by 2050 is simply too late, out of step with the scientific advice and far short of our fair share of the global effort needed to deliver on the Paris Agreement. This must be the floor, not the ceiling of our ambition.

Dr. Andrew Jackson, Professor John Sweeney and Professor Barry McMullin recently indicated the issue of predatory delay in a letter to the Minister, suggesting that the Bill referencing the 7% annual emissions target, as transposed in section 6A(5), is legally unclear, permitting multiple conflicting interpretations, none of which is strongly supported by the text. I welcome the Minister's commitment to clarify that issue and I hope he will introduce amendments in this regard on Committee Stage.

Some weaknesses in the Bill give a degree of discretion to Ministers when keeping in line with carbon budgets. There are no penalties if targets are missed or if the budgets are exceeded. This urgently needs to be addressed before the Bill is passed.

The Government cannot talk out of both sides of its mouth in addressing the issue of climate change. The intentions in the Bill must be reflected on the ground and must be reflected in strong policy, but this does not seem to be happening when it comes to fossil fuel and gas infrastructure. I understand the Minister plans to introduce amendments on Committee Stage on exploration. Despite a commitment in the programme for Government to ban the importation of fracked gas and the development of LNG infrastructure, applications for LNG development continue. We have been waiting for a policy statement for more than ten months and the Minister needs to commit today to issue that statement before new applications are in train. It is time for the Government to reaffirm its commitment to ban the importation of fracked gas by referencing this explicitly in the Bill by way of amendment. This was an explicit commitment made by the Green Party when it entered government, but we have yet to see any progress on that, including in this Bill.

As we begin a decade in which global emissions must decrease by half if the 1.5°C limit set out in the Paris Agreement is to remain viable, there is no scientific justification for the continued investment in and subsidisation of new fossil fuel infrastructure.

The Bill is a motherboard for overall governance and accountability measures so that we can hold the Government to account, no matter who is in power. The Minister said that it could take five or six government terms.

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