Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

This report which I am suggesting in this recommendation would look at the intersection of three issues of great significance to the public and to our collective future. These issues concern how we collectively take responsibility for and engage with the costs relating to climate action. I refer to taking action in the face of the existential threat posed by climate change. Globally, it is estimated that the chances of staying in any kind of safe zone regarding climate change are 33% or less. We are increasingly looking at a catastrophic crisis globally. The countries which have contributed the least to the crisis, namely, those which have not contributed the greatest amount of carbon emissions, are already bearing some of the most devastating impacts.

One of the aspects associated with the principle of climate justice within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change is the question of common but differentiated responsibilities. It recognises that while all of us face a collective challenge, there are those who bear a greater responsibility for causing these issues and who should also bear a greater responsibility to act in respect of them. My recommendation seeks to take a similar approach regarding how we should look at this issue on a national level.On an international level, I am passionate about climate justice. I know we have just transition but that is a different thing. It is more about how we do the policies and how we reflect things; it is about the way. Climate justice is about how much must be done and just transition is concerned with the detail of how it is done.

It might be worth considering a similar kind of process in relation to the responsibilities of corporations and citizens. Unlike others in this House, I support the changes in carbon pricing. I am not supporting them because I believe in the concept of lifestyle nudges or anything like that; it is more serious than that. I support the increase in carbon pricing because the price of fossil fuels has been subsidised for too long. The social and environmental costs have been held and carried by states. The Pigovian principle is the justification, even though there is no behavioural proof or evidence behind it. The principle holds that when a cost has been externalised and the public and the state have been required to carry it, that should be reflected within the price of carbon. That is why our priority must be to address issues like energy poverty so that those who are most vulnerable are not impacted disproportionately by the inevitable and necessary changes in the price of carbon to reflect the fact that it already has a cost that was being carried by the global south.

When we take the Pigovian principle a little further, we can see that addressing this issue at the point of purchase is missing an enormous part of the picture. We have moved ahead in relation to changing carbon pricing and increasing fuel costs at the point of purchase but we have not done very much to address the huge carbon costs and the fact that most of the benefits over decades that have led to the crisis we are in now have been reaped by corporations but they are not paying their part. When the National Oil Reserves Agency (Amendment) and Provision of Central Treasury Services Act went through the Houses earlier this year I pointed out that there should be a levy on the capital assets of the major fossil fuel companies so that we do not see what we have seen elsewhere in the world, whereby the cost of cleaning up such companies is also borne by the public.

When I talk about that principle of common and differentiated responsibilities, I am asking the Minister of State to consider how we might ensure that corporations pay their share. Globally, 20 companies are responsible for one third of the world's carbon emissions. Last year, 100 companies were responsible for 71% of the world's emissions. This is not simply a matter of everybody turning off the lights when they leave a room, as everyone who grew up in Ireland in the 1970s and 1980s has already been trained to do. There are some very large players who have made money for the last ten to 20 years and who have caused a lot of the damage. They should be asked to pay their share as well. That is why, alongside accurate carbon pricing that reflects the real and devastating cost of carbon, we also need to have levies on corporations.

There are two other elements to the report I am seeking. There is the question of the common but differentiated responsibilities but there is also the fact that the public is carrying a disproportionate amount of the cost of dealing with climate change and reducing emissions. The people of Ireland are carrying a larger burden than corporations in terms of energy costs and payments for energy. The people are also carrying a much larger burden in terms of paying the penalties. Today the people of Ireland are paying a €50 million penalty because Ireland has not taken the kind of substantial action needed to reach its renewable energy targets. Again, the public pays at the point of purchase but companies are not captured at the point of production. The public pays the fines for the State's failure to deliver on its targets. I am glad to say that today the Joint Committee on Climate Action had its final meeting of the year. It will produce a report and recommendations on how the climate Bill can be strengthened in that regard but the public is paying those fines.

Now we are also facing the prospect of the public carrying a whole set of other costs if the State wants to open us up to further arbitration through the investor courts provided for under CETA. We are already vulnerable in respect of the energy charter. Ireland has been extraordinarily lucky to avoid investor and corporate courts so far. There are many countries around the world which would argue that we are lucky to be in that position, including Australia which has just passed legislation to ensure the country will never again sign up to such investor courts because of the damage they have done in areas such as public health policy. Ireland is vulnerable under the energy charter, as is all of the EU.

There are many cases going through investment protection systems at the moment involving the corporations which created the costs and the damage we have talked about and have put countries in the position of having to pay fines. In terms of climate law, France diluted its climate protection laws which were meant to restrict natural gas and oil production because of the threat of legal action by the Canadian company, Vermillion Energy Inc. The energy company Uniper is preparing a lawsuit against the Netherlands over its planned withdrawal from coal. Since 2012, the Vattenfall company has been suing Germany for its nuclear phase-out, with compensation and legal costs potentially amounting to more than €6 billion. There are 117 countries which have had to answer claims through investor-state dispute settlement, ISDS, courts. Some countries are facing huge legal fee bills. This is the chill effect of regulation because when a company takes a case, it can cost €2,000 to €3,000 per day. Some cases last for ten years, resulting in legal fees of tens of millions of euro, leaving aside the final ruling. Corporations are being facilitated to take cases against us when we introduce environmental regulations, if they believe the cost of compliance with such regulations will diminish their future profits. They can seek compensation from us but if we do not introduce environmental regulations, we will be paying fines, and rightly so. In the meantime, the people continue to be told that it is up them to stop climate change.

There is a huge imbalance in how we are approaching these issues, some of which falls into the area of finance in the context of investment protection mechanisms. Let us be clear about CETA - the trade part is already happening. A full 98% of tariff reductions have already happened. The trade part, because CETA is a mixed agreement, is an EU competency and is already under way. However, the investment protection component and the investor courts, which create the aforementioned kinds of liabilities for states, are a separate vote. They are a separate vote because the European Court of Justice ruled that the decision to open a state up to financial and legal liabilities is so significant that it cannot be decided at EU level and that the investment protection mechanism must be ratified nationally. An attempt was made to slip the vote through these Houses this week. That vote relates to the investment protection part of CETA. It has no relationship to the trade part of the agreement, which has been happening since 2017 but it has huge implications for how we deal with the kind of environmental crises that we are facing in the next ten years. What are the implications if we choose to sign up to this and to vote for it? Bear in mind that no one is asking us to do this and that ten countries have not ratified the agreement yet. Nobody is making us schedule this vote and there is no deadline from Europe on it. When we vote on it, the decision is irreversible.It will take us 20 years if we try to get out of it and those 20 years are the 20 years in which we can avoid irreversible climate change. They are a very important 20 years.

We talked about some of the energy cases earlier, which really relate to the fossil fuel companies. Many European countries are trying to get out of the ISDS and the investment court elements of the energy charter. There is talk of withdrawing entirely from the energy charter or amending the energy charter because European countries recognise that we will not be able to address climate change as we need to if we leave ourselves open to compensatory cases from the fossil fuel companies which have driven this crisis.

We are at a very significant point of decision. I urge the Minister of State in whatever role he might have to urge that Ireland would not rush this decision, as it certainly seemed willing to do this week, and give it serious consideration. Has there been full risk-proofing of what this means? Is there a reserve fund - I do not see it in the Finance Bill - to allow us to meet the legal costs that may come? Is all our legislation proofed? Are we confident? Has there been a modelling of cases which investors, including some of the investors facilitated under the Minister of State' remit, might take against Ireland? Have there been case models? Has there been a full risk assessment? If it is available, it would be very useful to have it and share it with us in the House.

Ultimately the responsibility and the burden of proof is on those proposing such measures to show that they are safe, of benefit and necessary. It is the precautionary principle writ large. The precautionary principle is that when risking great harm, as we are doing with climate change, the burden of proof sits with those who are proposing the action which could cause the harm to show that it is safe. I feel that burden of proof has not been met.