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

Five minutes is a short time and, therefore, I will try to be concise.

I attended the UN climate conference in Poland yesterday and the message was stark for anyone who was not already aware. It was made clear that the window for the world to respond to the massive challenge we face is closing fast, and that the consequences of failing to respond are truly catastrophic, not only in the impact on individuals and countries but also on migration, the natural environment and civilisation, as David Attenborough said. It was also stark that, in general, the technology to achieve the set targets is already available. People are not, therefore, being asked to do something impossible or original. We have the technology. The clear message was that if we fail to respond to a challenge of this scale, it will have such an impact on the prospects of future generations that we will have utterly betrayed the people who will come after us.

It was a stark message and it puts our transition statement in perspective. During the crash, we seemed to conform to many of our climate obligations but once the recovery resumed it was clear we had failed to break the link between growth in emissions and growth in the economy. As of today, by 2020, for which we had a target to reduce emissions by 20%, we will have reduced emissions by only 1%. No sector other than the power sector is on track or has even reduced its targets by a significant degree. Some areas such as services, which are generally good, are better than others such as the transport and agriculture industries, which are quite bad. No sector, however, is on track to reduce emissions at the scale that was intended.

The UN also maps the measures that are in place and how they will have an impact. It has calculated the impact of the published national development plan, with which the Senators will be familiar. It is encouraging to see that the plan will have a significant impact. It is calculated that its impact will be 2,200 million tonnes cumulatively over the period to 2030, which will be just short of half of what we need to do by then. It shows the measures we are introducing are important and will have an impact but also that we need to step up our ambition considerably. The Taoiseach admitted we are a laggard in this area but it is my intention that we seek to be a leader in it, and the mandate that I have received supports that intention.We have the opportunity and the seriousness of this has been underlined by not just the UN conference, but by our Citizens' Assembly and by the Oireachtas which has set up an all-party committee to report by the end of January. I intend to work in parallel to the work of the Oireachtas committee. I intend to produce an all-of-government plan by the end of February. I am working on a similar schedule to try to bring together the measures that can make an impact.

I plan to look at this under six headings. One is the regulatory framework.