Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Our global climate and biodiversity crises are existential and fundamental to our capacity to live and to the survival of our planet, but it is not all doom and gloom and we should never feel powerless. It is good to have this opportunity to debate carbon budgets, given that we have just seen the IPCC's report with its chilling prognosis but also a reminder that we can still act to avoid a climate catastrophe. We have many of the solutions already. From agriculture to transport, we know what we have to do.

The first Bill I ever published, when I was first elected to the Oireachtas 15 years ago, sought to impose a cap on Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions. It was the first Bill of its kind in Ireland. Although that took place relatively recently, it seems a lifetime ago in terms of understanding the urgency of the crisis we are in. The IPCC report emphasises we are currently on a path to exceed 2°C warming worldwide, which could result in enormous loss of life, livelihoods, biodiversity and food security. The clear and stark message from that report, and I raised this with the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions on Tuesday, is the need to take action.

All of us are encouraged by the activism we see in the engagement of younger generations, in particular, who are driving the charge on climate justice through the school strikes movement, the Youth Climate Assembly and many of their campaigns. I was proud to stand with many of them at the most recent global school strike on 25 March. This is a cause that hits close to home for young people in Ireland because they know, as we do, that this is about our children and grandchildren. We are already running through their carbon budgets, spending their resources, destroying their planet and moving in the wrong direction. Just last weekend we saw the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, confirm the extent to which Ireland's emissions are heading in the wrong direction. We learned that emissions from electricity alone rose by 21% last year undoing the small progress we had achieved in previous years. The EPA branded this directional move as disappointing, which is patently an understatement.

We need to ensure real and urgent action is taken to implement the measures we have already put into law and that we very much welcomed and supported through our ambitious climate targets. The adoption of carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings form part of that effort. We have called for this to be a whole-of-government measure with economic and environmental planning taking place in parallel. In that spirit, we are glad to endorse and support the first two budgets being put to the House today. I am very grateful to the different voluntary groups and NGOs that have been in contact with all of us, and with the Government, in recent weeks and have worked so hard to see those budgets improved and adopted, while recognising they are not sufficiently aligned with Paris Agreement commitments and do not constitute Ireland's fair share. I pay special tribute to Friends of the Earth, the Stop Climate Chaos coalition and the Just Transition Alliance for their constructive campaigning and activism.

I welcome the commitment the Minister of State made in his speech to the establishment of a just transition commission. The delays in its establishment have fed into a sense of a lack of sufficient urgency from the Government in taking the necessary steps to meet our emissions reduction targets. I also referred in my remarks to the Taoiseach on Tuesday not only to the delay in the establishment of that commission, which is so critical in bringing measures forward, but to inefficient governance through the lack of meetings of the climate action delivery board. I asked the Taoiseach whether that board met yet this year, noting that it has only met once in 2021.

Turning again to the budgets before us, I note, as have others, there is a degree of backloading of our reductions between 2025 and 2030. I acknowledge this is to facilitate the adoption of new policies and practices but, again, we need to see a greater sense of urgency in these budgets. The IPCC was clear that there is a very small window of three years to meet targets. We know the effects of global warming are cumulative, so we will be worse off for not taking quick action now. The adoption of reductions must happen on the understanding there is no room for any additional backloading of emissions reductions. It is imperative we do not overshoot the first carbon budget. These should not be seen as targets but, rather, a floor beneath which we cannot fall. It would be morally unconscionable to pass the clear tipping points the IPCC has identified, which would trigger larger-scale changes in Earth's systems and a loss of biodiversity, with many species already on the ready on the brink of extinction.

I will turn to the third carbon budget proposed from 2031 to 2035. I note this budget remains provisional. This budget needs to be improved upon in order that we can achieve net zero as quickly as possible, while noting that the law states 2050 is the latest target and some countries have adopted net zero targets earlier than 2050. The reasoning behind the adoption of these earlier targets by other countries should form part of the Climate Change Advisory Council research in finalising the measures for the third budget. Looking at those other countries, Sweden, Portugal and Germany have set a zero target date of 2045 in law. Finland and Austria have set earlier targets in policy of 2035 and 2040, respectively. The adoption by other EU states of these earlier net zero target dates shows us what can and may be done.

The Labour Party prepared an amendment to this motion, which would have had the effect of declining to approve the third carbon budget for that five-year period of 2031 to 2035 on the basis of the need to ensure greater research on this. Unfortunately, we were out of time with that amendment but I will put forward the logic that lay behind our proposed amendment to the Minister of State. While the Climate Change Advisory Council put forward a reduction rate of only 3.5% from 2031 to 2035 for this provisional third budget, this presupposed a linear path from 2030 to net zero by 2050. To return to the previous point, our climate law stipulates net zero by 2050 at the latest. We believe there should have been steeper and faster cuts built in. Our view, shared by Friends of the Earth, is the council should take into account the principle of climate justice about which our former President, Mary Robinson, has spoken so clearly. It should also have taken into account the obligations of the Paris Agreement, including the principle of common but differentiated responsibility in drawing up this third carbon budget proposal. Climate law sets a legal requirement for the CCAC to consider climate justice and the principle of Ireland's fair share in line with the further principle of common but differentiated responsibilities. We believe that, based on what the CCAC has already published, more research and analysis should be built into informing the finalisation of the third carbon budget and, indeed, a provisional fourth carbon budget. I am sorry we did not have the opportunity to table that amendment but I want to put that on the record, although we support the earlier budgets.

We in Ireland must do our fair share. This comes back to the point about responsibility and, in particular, global responsibility. We have spoken extensively in both Houses in recent months about the cost-of-living crisis and what needs to be done to alleviate the burden on ordinary people and on every household in Ireland. We know that the cost-of-living crisis, the energy security crisis as a result of the horrific war in Ukraine and the climate emergency are all strongly interlinked. Households throughout the country are struggling to meet the costs of housing, transport, childcare and more, in addition to rising energy and fuel costs. We are, however, a country that can do much more to support those who need supports with targeted measures while, in parallel, continuing on our path to end our reliance on fossil fuels. Some say Ireland is too small to made a difference but, looking at the global reality, 111 countries are the same size or smaller than Ireland. If they all said they were too small to make a difference, we would never reach global climate emissions reduction targets.

We need to do more in this country at every level and in all sectors. We speak every week about this but I was struck, in particular, by the recent words of Professor Kevin Anderson who addressed the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. He contended that reaching a globally fair and equitable system of emissions cuts would require Ireland to reach net zero by 2029. This is much earlier than even those other European countries are proposing as their net zero dates. It is in that context that I emphasise we accept the need to pass these budgets without delay but to do so in a manner that will make it possible for us to improve upon our implementation and strategies to reach net zero.

We are told that without immediate and deep carbon emissions reductions across all sectors, it will not be possible to limit global warming to 1.5°C this century. Three years ago, noting the crisis we were in, this House voted to declare a climate emergency, but last weekend we learned from the UN IPCC just how critical this timing now is and how crucial it is that we act urgently, without any further delay, to implement the necessary measures. We have the targets in law. We need to do more to ensure they are reached before that very latest date of 2050 we have set for ourselves.

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