Seanad debates

Friday, 9 July 2021

Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021: Report and Final Stages

 

9:30 am

Photo of Eamon RyanEamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The issue of the definition of sustainable development goes back to the Brundtland report and the principle that we will not compromise the interests of those in the future with what we deliver today. The sustainable development goals within that have been hugely significant. With regard to the Rio agreement, the Johannesburg agreement and New York in 2015, they were taken as an overarching manifesto for the future, which is what they are. They are a guide in everything we are doing. We do not need to define that here, however. That is a manifesto for the future which will have to apply in a variety of legislative measures in respect of education, justice, environment and other areas.

We are delivering on goal 13 in setting the right legislation for our climate approach. We will not write that manifesto for all the different areas which are contained, correctly, in the sustainable development goals. This is focused legislation on how we in the State meet goal 13 in climate legislation. It is specific, precise legislation in order that we set about meeting that goal and the targets.

It is appropriate that we have regard to sustainable development but I cannot accept the amendment. I see this legislation as a key means by which the State organises to meet goal 13. It is in the context of the wider sustainable development agenda, which integrates social justice with ecological justice but it is not the purpose of this Bill to bring that into being. Its purpose is to focus on the immediate task in hand in meeting our climate commitments.

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