Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate and the Minister's assurances. He made important points, the first of which was that this situation was evolving and he had already gained significant flexibilities. The second was that Ireland was not tied into plans or targets developed at a single point in time. That was one of the fears held by people who read the detail of some of these targets. The third point, and one the Minister emphasised, was that the obligation to deliver was on member states, not on individuals. Article 16 of the agreement could be read as giving the right to litigate against individuals in respect of some of the targets. As such, the Minister's assurances were important.

The existing strategy has failed. There was to be 15% restoration by 2020 but we have not delivered that. The idea of delivering binding targets and having a new framework for delivery is central. We will all be worse off if we fall short. Some practices that we have all bought into over many years – from fossil fuels to the way we manage our businesses and farms – will inflict catastrophic damage if we do not move early to correct them.

People saying that farmers only account for 2% of the population and we cannot be held to ransom by them is a recipe for preventing progress. Equally, I deplore the portrayal of adapting to meet these changes as an attack on rural life as we know it. This is equally damaging. Both positions, which I have heard articulated by Deputies, are a recipe for paralysis and that helps no one. It is important that we take this opportunity to develop a framework that avoids the postponement of action, allows us to take early action and ensures fairness for those who would be impacted.

It is important to emphasise that we are not dealing with a zero-sum game. As the Commission has pointed out time and again, this is a positive-sum game and, if we move, we will all be better off. The Commission has indicated that the benefit will be eight times the investment we are being asked to make. In gaming theory, this is an opportunity to have co-operative strategies from which we will all benefit and to share that benefit in a way that is fair to those who must make the greatest changes.

In many ways, fear has grown because what is being proposed is not trivial, as some have suggested. It is as radical as the climate action plan, in that we will have to change significantly the approaches to land use to which we have grown accustomed. We recall how the climate action plan evolved. I was involved in it. Hundreds of measures were evaluated, marginal cost curves were developed, investment needs were profiled, and tax and incentive instruments were developed. We are a long way from that in this case, but we are also facing what is radically transformative change. As politicians, we have to bring people with us if we are to deliver this change.

It is tempting for people to say, as I hear Members in the House say, that we should look at the science, which gives us a target and then let us have legal measures to go after these greedy people and make sure they deliver. That is a blind alley. Anyone who looks to the future of this country must see that is the case. It would create conflict that would not deliver the objectives. My belief is that what we have to do is develop an approach that helps the change to happen. A lot of this change has happened inadvertently. No one knew what would happen when people made commitments to draining land. I remember writing about draining river basins as being a really positive thing that conferred lots of benefits. No one knew at the time the damage that was being done by it or by fossil fuels. It is simplistic to say that the greedy companies or big business should reverse this. We all have to change the way we live, but that is not going to be easy and we have to evolve ways of working together to do that.

We must ensure that carbon farming comes forward rapidly and the incentives for carbon farming come very quickly. What I think we need here are what I saw referred to as complex adaptive coalitions. We need to build coalitions that can help us to deliver this. That is not going to be easy. I welcome the Minister's commitment, but I think we need to work through these targets and ensure they are compatible and we can work to them.

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