Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

The discussion on carbon budgets, and ultimately the decisions that will be made, will be some of the most important decisions made by this Dáil. The Government, however, proposes to ram through the committee report on carbon budgets with no opportunity whatsoever to debate it here in the House. The truth for that is because what is contained within the committee report is a cop-out. The programme for Government promised 7% annual reductions, but contained in the report is a recommendation for a 4.8% reduction for the time of this Government. Even extending out to the end of the decade, Professor Barry McMullin has pointed out that it amounts to an average 6% average reduction. It breaks the programme for Government, it breaks the Paris climate agreement, it breaks EU emissions targets and, most important, it breaks the actual science in terms of what needs to be done. It relies on unproven and non-existent carbon capture and storage technologies in the future, and it ignores the impact of aviation and shipping emissions. At the very least we must have a debate on it, and we actually have time in the Dáil schedule to have that debate. I would appeal to the Taoiseach to accept that.

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