Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The circular economy Bill references the sustainable development goals and it does not have an issue with doing so. There are formulations that allow for references to the sustainable development goals and the subsequent goals that may follow them, as was done in relation to the millennium development goals, which preceded them. The Minister of State mentioned a number of bodies that would be engaged with, but I do not believe those bodies are named or reflected in the Bill. The Minister of State mentioned that there would be engagement with the UN sustainable development goals and a number of other parties, but that is not in the Bill. There is nothing in the Bill that gives that imprimatur. I just want to read it so that I am clear. The Bill could have left it and simply said “environmental sustainability”, which the Minister of State said lots of times, but it actually states "references to environmental development and sustainability shall be construed as references to development and actions that meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs". It is a section that has some hope because it continues by providing "without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing, includes actions in respect of social, economic, cultural and environmental development, climate and biodiversity". Yet, the conversation is simply about the needs of this generation and those of the next generation. That is not where we are at. This looks at a 20-year frame that has passed. Climate action is here now.

With respect, the idea of the historic response is important. It is important to look at the historic responsibility. Maybe the Minister of State does not want to include a recognition of it but I propose that because the solutions one comes up with make a difference. Ireland has used up more than its global share of emissions. We have put more carbon out into the air per capita than many other countries in the world, such as Bolivia, Malawi, etc. At the moment, in our carbon budget plan, we are going to continue to take more than our fair share. Our fair share would involve a 7.6% reduction, but we are hoping for a 6% reduction. We are therefore still planning to continue to take up more than our fair share of our planetary boundary space, which is actual and physical and has limited availability for emissions. Therefore, the decisions one makes about the future need to be informed by the past and by the fact that if one has been taking and taking from the collective planetary resource, that is, air and our atmosphere, then one needs to start taking a little bit less. You need to come up with ways to innovate and think of research and ideas about how one can take up less. That is recognised under the UNFCCC. I will indicate now that on Report Stage, I may bring forward amendments that spell out more clearly the common but differentiated responsibilities. Under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement, tackling climate change is a common challenge but there are differentiated responsibilities. Those differentiated responsibilities are based on the history we have.

That historic loss and damage, etc., therefore matters, but maybe right now it is a bridge too far for the Government, even though it is where we need to go. Even if that is not there, I refer to the kinds of things the Minister of State was talking about, such as how we want to be ahead, how we want to be ready for the next generations and how we want to move and evolve with what is happening. Yet, this phrasing ties us to really outdated language from the 1980s, rather than referencing the many subsequent available definitions of sustainability and environment, such as how they are defined within the sustainable development goals. The Minister of State's way of phrasing it does not equip us to move to the future and I will again point out how narrow it is.At the moment, the Act has references to a narrow definition of environmental development and sustainability but when we move to the other area I have tabled amendments, which is the "Objects of Agency", it is actually worded in a strange way where it states "to promote and support the contribution made by research and innovation to economic, social, cultural and environmental development and sustainability in the State". Under that, the objects of the agency are just looking at the needs of people in this State and the needs of the next generation in this State and have no thought about the rest of the world at all or no mandate to look at environment, climate and sustainability on a global level or even a European level. That is just the way it is worded at the moment. Again, I hope that may be unintentional. I will come to some other ways we can address that, which I hope is inadvertent, but right now it is framed in such a narrow way that it is as if when we talk about environmental sustainability, that is just about this generation and the next generation in Ireland and everybody else in this whole shared planet that is pretty much on fire right now does not feature at all.

I am not going to press all of these amendments because I hope there might be some engagement but I really urge that there is a rethink and some examination of how we can make this Bill better in terms of its addressing climate and biodiversity.