Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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8. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment his plans to support the fast-tracking of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill 2016 in view of the fact that the State is likely to face fines in excess of €150 million for missing CO2 emission targets by 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23902/18]

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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As the Minister knows, Ireland is on target to be hit with substantial fines in a year or two as a result of being so far off our 2020 CO₂emissions target. It is not really about the fines; that is a bit of a sideshow. We are in this position because we have no serious policy to address these issues. We have a number of measures, but they are not the be all and end all. A number of items of pending legislation could help. What is the Minister doing about them?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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The Fossil Fuels Divestment Bill seeks to amend the NTMA Acts to have the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund divest from fossil fuels. The Bill is a matter for the Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform. He informs me that to date there has been very constructive engagement with Deputy Thomas Pringle on the passage of the Private Members Bill. He has also informed me that it passed Committee Stage on 19 April. Given that it is a Private Members' Bill, Report Stage will be scheduled in Private Members’ time. Its scheduling is outside the Government's control.

Meeting Ireland's EU targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 2030 will be extremely challenging. The latest projections for greenhouse gas emissions, published by the EPA earlier today, indicate that emissions from those sectors of the economy covered by Ireland's 2020 targets might only be 1% below 2005 levels by 2020, despite a target that emissions should be 20% below their 2005 levels. This is deeply disappointing but not surprising, given the recent pace of economic growth and the consequent increases in emissions from the agriculture and transport sectors, in particular. The projected shortfall against our targets is further exacerbated by the constrained investment capacity in the past decade due to the economic crisis.

The legislative framework governing the European Union’s 2020 emissions reduction targets includes a number of flexibility mechanisms to enable member states to meet their annual emissions targets, including provisions to bank excess allowances to future years and trade allowances between member states. Using our banked emissions from the period to 2015, Ireland complies with its emissions reduction targets. However, our cumulative emissions are expected to exceed targets at end of the decade, which will result in a requirement to purchase additional allowances. While this purchasing requirement is not, at this stage, expected to be significant, further analysis will be required to quantify the likely costs involved in the light of the final amount and price of allowances required.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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The Minister used the word "disappointing". That is a bit of an understatement. It is a catastrophic failure. It is absolutely shocking that we are so far off our emissions targets. It is not about massaging the figures, buying a little time, buying a few allowances here and there and all the rest. It indicates that we are well off course, particularly in the sectors mentioned by the Minister such as agriculture in which we are not facing up to our responsibilities in that regard. Ireland has the third highest emissions per capita with a heavy reliance on oil, coal and peat and rising emissions in sectors such as agriculture, energy and transport. We do not seem to be doing anything to correct this. Deputy Thomas Pringle's Bill is a good initiative. It will not change things all that dramatically, but it will contribute. Unless we start to deliver on things such as this, we will not just be disappointed and paying fines with a pot load of money, we could also be spending on other things. However, our planet will be destroyed and with it our country. We need to see something much better.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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If the Business Committee could facilitate the taking of the Bill, I would like to see it expedited. Based on the current trajectory, we will have an enormous challenge to meet our 2030 targets. We will need to reconcile our ambitions in Food Wise 2025, the need for food security in the European Union, carbon leakage in food production and our climate change targets for 2030. When Commissioner Phil Hogan was here recently, he highlighted CAP reform. We will need to consider mainstreaming measures such as the smart farming initiative. We have huge challenges ahead of us. The projections to 2020 do not include the measures we have announced in the national development plan to spend €1 in every €5 in the next decade on climate-related measures. They do not take fully into account the measures provided for in the mitigation plan. We need to consider not just how we spend money but also, as I said to Deputy Eamon Ryan, the regulatory and taxation structure.

Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent)
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We are working to have Report Stage of the Bill taken before the recess and there is a will to do so. I appreciate that the Minister has acknowledged plainly - he could not do otherwise - that we will not just miss the 2020 targets but also the 2030 targets. The planet will probably have exploded by 2050. While there is honesty in the Minister's admission, there is no consequential impact on policy.

Whether it is the Minister's office or somewhere else, somebody must start calling a halt to this. One Department is not going to address this. Climate impact and emissions are not a side issue and they should be an integral part of every Department's briefing. Unless there is a radical departure where this is a factor in the Department's dealings with transport, agriculture, planning and all the others, we will be in an even worse position than the Minister has acknowledged. That multidepartmental approach must be introduced as what the Minister has admitted is frightening.

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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It would be unfair to say we are not doing things and there has not been a step change over the past two years. The proof of that is in the national development plan, where €1 in every €5 spent over the next decade on the public side will be on climate-related activity. We have made a definitive decision to take coal out of power generation by 2025 and we will be one of the first countries in Europe to do so. We will be one of the first countries in the world to ban smoky coal later this year.

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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What about peat?

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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We are ahead of the curve in that we are banning the sale of all new fossil fuel vehicles from 2030, which is way ahead of anyone else. Yesterday we announced the climate action fund, one of the biggest funds of its type anywhere in the world. We will have the carbon tax report in advance of the forthcoming budget. Even yesterday I was commended on the initiative we took in Ireland on benefit-in-kind with electric vehicles, which is already stimulating demand in that market. It is far more focused than in some other European Union countries.