Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 18:

In page 7, between lines 12 and 13, to insert the following: “ ‘national minimum interim target’ has the meaning of the proposed 51 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, as set out in section 9(5);”.

I am happy to speak to amendments Nos. 18 and 71 in combination. They both relate to the concept of a minimum target. If amendment No. 18 is carried, there will be consequential amendments, which I would be very happy to table on Report Stage. I have not tabled all the amendments that would be consequential on amendment No. 18 today for the reason of focusing our debate as much as possible. It is important to highlight that the recommendation the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action made was for a minimum interim target to be set out in law.This is the same kind of thing we have seen in Scotland, where a legal minimum interim target in terms of emissions reductions was set out in law. This is not what is in the Bill before the House. What is in this Bill is simply a requirement that the advisory council might propose two budgets that would reach 51%. The nature of where that 51% sits and whether it covers the entire period or just that year is something we will come to later when we discuss section 9.

Again, when we talk about things being debated at length in the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action - let us remember that we came to agreement and voted in order to get the value from the hours we put into the committee - I would like to see more of its recommendations properly reflected in the Bill, including having an interim minimum target set in law. I do not really understand why we have not seized this moment or, more specifically, why the Minister has not seized it to really ensure that if the programme for Government commitment is for 51%, it is put in law in the most concrete form possible rather than simply leaving it to the advisory council, which is meant to be independent and come up with recommendations based on the science and all these other factors we asked it to consider. The council is meant to come up with ambitious recommendations and carbon budgets that may include more than 51%, but the 51% in law is a political commitment the Minister made going into Government. The commitment to 51% was one of the key arguments in respect of going into Government. It should be included in this Bill to ensure that whatever happens at Cabinet meetings in the future regarding proposals that come forward, it will be there as a requirement and sits as an anchor for all future Governments to be aware of between now and 2030. As a result of the fact that the next ten years matter so much, that 51% is an interim target in respect of which we are all, including the Government, happy to be held to account. At the moment, there is really no provision to hold the Government to account on the 51% as strongly as should be the case. I am sure it will be held to account politically but it is not there in the way that I, as a legislator, would like to see it.

The other key aspect - I believe this is why the amendment was grouped with amendment No. 71 - is that even if the Government had taken a different approach to the 51%, then one of the crucial components really should still be there. This is the idea of the 51% being a minimum to say that we will at least do 51% and are leaving space for greater ambition. As the Bill is set out, it is very specific. It is 51% and it is just 51% in 2030. This is another point in terms of when we talk about the programme for Government and the recommendations of the committee - the strong divergence in this Bill from the programme for Government commitment and the recommendations of the committee. The Bill sets out a 51% target for 2030 that is based on the emissions for the year 2018. Going into the Dáil debate, there was some ambiguity. People were saying that it was not clear if the Government meant that it is going to deliver the 7% year-on-year reductions. Eminent professors such as John McSweeney and others pointed out their concern that there was no clear glide path, which was one of the key recommendations we heard again and again at the Oireachtas committee. We heard that there needs to be a clear pathway, that the Government needs to take an approach of building on and then reducing piece by piece and that it would be 7% per annum. We all know how compound interest works and how it adds up to a lot more than simple interest, so the idea is that we would have 7% and that this would be built on year by year. A question was asked as to whether this was how the Government was interpreting it or whether it was simply about a 51% reduction in emissions in 2030. Unfortunately, the narrower and less ambitious interpretation is the one that is being copper-fastened in the Bill at section 9. Amendment No. 71 simply tries to give the Minister or his successor leeway and, crucially, tries to give the advisory council discretion to be consistent with its actual mandate to be consistent with all of the various UN requirements. It gives the council permission to propose a budget that is more ambitious than 51%. The Bill ties the hands of the advisory council in the context of 2030.

Including the word "minimum" in is a small thing but a minimum of 51% will show that there is an understanding that 51% is what was negotiated in 2020 in the context of the programme for Government but that the world might look different by 2025. Things are even looking different now, as we see from Canada and the shift in ambition around the world. Crucially, use of the word "minimum" also safeguards the independence of the advisory council and allows it the discretion it needs to be more ambitious than what was agreed between three political parties. It frees the council and sends a signal that it is independent and responsive to the information and science as it sees it and is not simply there to rubber-stamp a political minimum and a political goal that was negotiated in the past.

I accept that the 51% target needs to be in the Bill. It should be there as a stand-alone legal target. I hope the Minister considers that. I realise that this amendment will need further consequential amendments if the Minister decides to take that approach, as I hope he does. As an absolute minimum, I hope he will accept amendment No. 71 when we come to it, which would place the word "minimum" before the 51% target.