Mark Dearey (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State. I welcome also the placing of the Climate Change Response Bill 2010 before the House. It is a significant day. It is probably an historic day in the sense that climate change has been on the agenda since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This country has been through an enormous time of economic change. We did not take account of the message of Rio de Janeiro and this Bill is a significant indication that, finally, we are beginning to do that. It is a long time after the optimal moment but for that reason it is still an historic day.

I note the equivalence Senator Norris gave to this Bill as to the Finance Bill, a Bill on which we are placing particular importance because we see it as a Bill that will enable Ireland to borrow money it cannot borrow on markets that effectively have been closed to us owing to lack of regulation at the right time, poor foresight and lack of management of our financial affairs. A similar catastrophe will befall us, multiplied by I do not know how much, if we do not plan for the impending climate crunch. We must offset its most serious effects and that means trying to keep increases in global temperatures to below two degrees if we are to avoid what is known as runaway climate change. Ireland has a small but significant role to play in that, and it is in that framework that I welcome this Bill.

I will pre-empt some of my comments on the Bill by referring to Nicholas Stern, former deputy director of the World Bank and lecturer in the London School of Economics, who was tasked with writing a report on the economic impact of climate change in the United Kingdom. It became known as the Stern Review. He makes many recommendations for actions in that report. In one of his recommendations, and it could apply equally to this Bill, he states:

The case for strong and urgent action ... first, on the severe risks that the science now identifies ... and, second, on the ethics of the responsibilities of existing generations in relation to succeeding generations. It is these two things that are crucial: risk and ethics. Different commentators may vary in their emphasis, but it is the two together that are crucial. Jettison either one and you will have a much reduced programme for action - and if you judge risks to be small [and I believe many do] and attach little significance to future generations you will not regard global warming as a problem.

In the commentary on climate change in Ireland there is still a significant portion of people who consider the risks to be small. It is not a view I share, nor is it a view the Green Party or this Government shares and, therefore, the urgency and the far-reaching nature of this Bill commends it to this House.

On the business of climate change, as a small nation reliant on external trade and therefore on regaining and retaining competitiveness, why should Ireland take early and decisive action on climate change above and beyond the ethical and risk issues I have mentioned? The question gets to the marrow of the argument about the need for a climate Bill and the merits of this climate Bill in particular.

The first comment I would make is that our actions as laid out in this Bill are not in fact early. Under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, Ireland's obligation was to limit emissions to 13% above 1990 levels over a five year period from 2008 to 2012. This was in recognition, within the EU's internal burden sharing scheme, of the underdeveloped nature of the Irish economy in that base year. In hindsight, from 1997 onwards was also a time when we should have put in place policy and legislation that would leave our economy ready for a low carbon future and make the transition to that low carbon model that this Bill legislates for an easier one than it will be but we set off on a different trajectory, enjoyed a boom that depended utterly on imported fossil fuel and resulted in rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

Our pathway to economic and infrastructural development means we now have a larger task in terms of planning, transport, energy production, agriculture and the distribution of utilities. Our housing and building stock, much of which was built since the original climate change conference in 1992, is not designed, located or built with a view to low carbon emissions and we now have a highly dispersed location pattern that is very difficult to deal with. To borrow the cliché of the moment, our housing is where it is and there is not much we can do about that, but we are at least beginning to make it more efficient.

This Bill is enabling legislation and while it contains targets given in the Minister of State's contribution, it is primarily about putting legally binding obligations on the Minister to produce a national climate change plan that will include measures to mitigate against greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon sinks, and measures to adapt our economic system to ensure it reduces the amount it emits as it continues to confer on us the benefits of enhanced economic activity and development.

The medium and long-term targets are what we and the world must achieve if we are to limit global warming to two degrees, as I identified. I trust that industry, agriculture and policy makers recognise that we cannot afford to ignore the fact we must keep global temperatures within these limits and that we need to respond now. The short-term target is a 26% reduction by 2020. That figure is confirmed in the Bills digest produced by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service. The target is 6% above our current commitment to achieving a 20% reduction by 2020, as formally adopted by the EU in April 2009. Indeed, that climate and energy package also lays the basis for a commitment in Europe to go to 30% by 2020 if global agreement on increased targets can be reached, something I expect to see happen in Durban toward the end of this year, as Senator O'Reilly said earlier. In this regard I wish to establish my confidence in this by quoting the comments of the executive secretary at the last framework convention in Cancun:

Nations must follow up their successful UN Climate Change Conference in Cancun with higher global emission cuts and the rapid launch of new institutions and funds to show the world that a new era of international co-operation on climate change is established in fact.

Some would argue that we should not be setting targets here that exceed our obligations, but this is being done in part in anticipation of the 30% EU target coming into effect in time.

I also bring to the attention of the House the analysis provided by Friends of the Earth and which I have had verified by the Department, about what the Bill will mean in gross tonnage terms, as compared to the targets in the energy package of April 2009. Senator Norris is right. There is barely any difference in the gross tonnage, despite that fact there is a 6% difference in the targets. This is because, on the traded side, we have a very high level of reduction of carbon dioxide because of our commitment to renewables. Our level of reduction is 32%. This means 7 million tonnes of carbon being taken out, because we can generate electricity through renewables. This has given some relief on the non-traded side, which is the side on which agriculture and IBEC operate.

Another relief can be achieved through an increase in the projected sinks we have in place by 2020, which will give a 71% increase in the amount of CO2 being removed from the Irish environment and from the processes in which we engage. A gross figure of 4.8 million tonnes is envisaged here. This means that in the sector in which most of our economic activity is done, and in which the private sector operates, we need to achieve a reduction of 10 million tonnes on the base year 2008. When one takes sinks into account and subtracts what the sinks will be able to do from the national output of greenhouse gases one gets a 0.1 million tonne difference, which is negligible. I hope the various bodies which have been commenting on this can engage with those figures and understand that they are achievable and that the Bill does not put an additional onerous burden on them as Ireland moves towards being a low carbon economy.

The Confederation of British Industry, at its climate summit in November 2010, highlighted the opportunities for business generated by the global transition to a low carbon world. The global market for low carbon goods and services will be worth £4 trillion, close to €5 trillion, by 2015. That was the key message. While Ireland has had to develop in the fossil fuel era on the basis of purchasing its energy from those better endowed than ourselves we, in fact, are the well endowed ones for the low carbon era when it comes to renewable energy, financial services provision, innovation, education and so on.

The Bill will not please everyone but one thing that can be said of it without fear of contradiction is that it places Ireland out there among global investors as a location and a country committed to the transition and ahead of the curve in making it happen. We need to reinvent our economy. It needs to continue to move from fossil fuel dependence to fuel independence. What an assertion of sovereignty that can be at a time when we have it under such pressure.

The Confederation of British Industry chairman, Sir Richard Lambert, has stated that the CBI will not allow uncertainty of global targets to stop British industry from moving ahead. We cannot be left trailing behind Great Britain and Northern Ireland in our readiness for the low carbon future with which this Bill provides us.