Dáil debates

Wednesday, 6 April 2022

5:30 pm

Photo of Brian LeddinBrian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

As my colleagues have mentioned, the IPCC report published on Monday made for grim reading. It did not tell us anything we do not know already. We are in a really dangerous situation with respect to climate. It was a hard scientific report put together by people who know what they are talking about. They have looked at the numbers. They have been looking at this for 30 years. The science is absolutely, categorically true: we are in a perilous situation with respect to our climate. The report says that by 2025, global greenhouse gas emissions must peak and then we must reduce them by 47% by the end of the decade if we are to maintain any hope of staying within the 1.5°C temperature rise over the pre-industrial average, which was the basis for the Paris Agreement.

The rate of growth of emissions has slowed to about 1.7% per year, and that is positive, but the chances of keeping the temperature rise to 1.5°C are very slim indeed. In fact we are on course for double that with an increase of 3°C. We are at about 1.2°C right now and with that, we can see the devastation that is causing. We can see it here in Ireland with droughts and very frequent storms and we are seeing it more across the world where the global poor are most affected. Two degrees of warming would lift sea levels by almost 60 cm or 2 ft. Beyond 2°C, and we are on course for 3°C, we do not know how bad it will be and what will happen. What we do know is that feedback loops will kick in and we will enter a chain reaction of global temperature rise that will be utterly catastrophic. It will lead the global ice melt to accelerate exponentially. That is a situation where many of the coastal cities of the world will be underwater. Much of the coastal communities that we know now will be uninhabitable. We are likely to see the collapse of ecosystems and our ability to produce food. That is the course we are on right now.

What is before this House is what the Climate Change Advisory Council has proposed as a carbon budget. The council is not a representative body and nor should it be. It is a collection of experts in the science of climate change as well as experts best placed to guide us in the transition away from a fossil-fuelled and carbon-intensive economy. I commend the chair of the council, Ms Marie Donnelly, who came before the committee. She really is a steady hand. She is a voice of reason and very measured. We owe a debt to her for the work that she has done on the council and in the production of this carbon budget. I also commend her colleagues on their work. I want to give particular praise to the carbon budget sub-committee. It came before the joint committee. I would like to name them all but there were so many of them, it would use all my time. We were really impressed by their contributions. The CCAC is required under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act, which this House overwhelmingly supported last summer, to produce three consecutive carbon budgets. The first two were required to be aligned with the legally-binding target that we cut greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030.

What is a carbon budget? It is a self-imposed ration on the amount of carbon we will release into the atmosphere. It is not a sectoral ceiling. Those will come later. I note from the Minister of State’s contribution that we are going to get them at the end of June. That will be interesting. I think the Government will propose ceilings for various relevant sectors such as transport, housing, agriculture, industry, electricity generation and so on. A necessary debate should happen then about what the appropriate sectoral emission ceilings are. But this is the carbon budget; the five-year maximum allocation of carbon that we will allow ourselves across society through to 2026. The second one will be through to 2030. The third, as proposed by the council, is provisionally through to 2035.

The challenge for the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action, which I chair, was to look at the proposal from the council and assess whether the proposal was appropriate, whether it was something we would endorse or reject or what we had to say about it. We undertook a highly extensive process and I commend colleagues, who are here this evening, on returning to the Houses early in the Christmas recess to do that work. It was a very comprehensive piece of work. As I said, we invited the carbon budget sub-committee of the CCAC. We invited other eminent scientists, including Professor Kevin Anderson who Deputy Bacik just mentioned. We invited in the social partners and had representatives from each of the pillars and we invited in officials from the Departments that will be most responsible for ensuring that the carbon budgets are not exceeded.

In the end the budgets, were endorsed by joint committee but not unanimously. It was a difficult process. We are a highly collaborative committee and each and every member works very hard and diligently, week in, week out. People took their positions fairly and legitimately. In the end we did endorse the proposed carbon budget by a strong majority. I respect those who have different views.

I very much welcome Sinn Féin’s position today. I value the contributions of Deputies O’Rourke and Cronin to the committee always. I am a bit taken aback by Deputy O'Rourke’s criticisms of the Government. It is a little unlike his contributions at the committee, but I might return to those later.

The Labour Party is a party with a reputation for constructive opposition and it is very serious about policy. It is a loss to the committee that we do not have a Labour representative.

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