Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to debate the carbon budgets in the Chamber. I am always quite torn when it comes to these kinds of debates because I understand the commitment parties like the Green Party in particular have had over many years on climate and environmental issues and the role that party has taken in the current Government in pushing for and driving many of the changes we need to see. I am also torn because as a parliamentarian, a scientist and a mother, Deputy Leddin is right that I want to see the Government doing more and want to see change happening in a faster, quicker and fairer way. Deputy Leddin asked what we would do. We are saying the Government should do more and make it happen faster.

My party has outlined its policies and put them down on paper. This is not about my party, however. It is about what the Green Party said it would do.

Deputy Leddin said that he wanted us to talk about numbers so I will give him one number tonight, a key number and that is 7%. During the negotiations to form a Government, one apparent red line was a 7% per annum reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. That was a green line from the Green Party. It put 17 questions to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael and the first one was whether they would commit to an average annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of at least 7%. Apparently, this was a red line for the party and it worked because the Green Party got it into the programme for Government. The programme for Government states that the Government is "committed to an average 7% per annum reduction in overall greenhouse emissions". This is reiterated four times over two pages. There is reference to a 7% average reduction and yet when we get the carbon budgets and get the opportunity to scrutinise them, it turns out that it is not 7% but 5.7%.

Deputy Leddin is correct to state that we heard from some very eminent people during our discussions at the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action. He is also correct in saying that the CCAC has very highly qualified and passionate members. Some very highly qualified and passionate scientists also appeared before the joint committee. One of those scientists, Professor Barry McMullin, indicated that while the programme for Government contains an explicit commitment to an average reduction in total emissions of 7% per year over the period 2021 to 2030, the current carbon budgets amount to an annual reduction of just under 6% per year. It was not just Professor McMullin and the other scientists who appeared before the joint committee who said this; the CCAC also said it. The council stated that in the scenarios considered by the joint committee, the average rate of emissions over the ten-year period covering the first two carbon budgets would be approximately 5.7% per annum. This is not something that I, independent scientists and various environmental NGOs are saying; it is the CCAC saying that the carbon budgets will not meet the 7% target.

We can talk about what other parties are doing, but the Green Party is in government. Ultimately, the 7% was written into the programme for Government. It was a key commitment and red-line issue for the Green Party but, unfortunately, the carbon budgets are not going to meet that promise.

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