Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The amendment seeks to clarify the definition of "environmental development and sustainability". To be clear, the climate crisis is here already and is having a disproportionate impact on the world's most vulnerable people. At the climate action committee, we recently discussed Ireland's climate change assessment report, which was starkly clear that the climate emergency is already having impacts and that those impacts are projected to deepen significantly in the very near future. What is more, temperatures in Ireland will continue to rise. I have to hand excessive statistics on this, which I will not read, but the facts are stark. Crucially, as well as the sea rises we will see in Cork and Dublin, the temperature impacts in Ireland and the loss of native species that will happen, we are internationally seeing incredible impacts from the climate crisis right now. In particular, we are seeing disproportionate impacts from the climate crisis on those in the global south, who have done least to cause the crisis.

The problem with the Bill as drafted, which I have spoken about previously, is that it uses language from before Rio and before the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, UNFCCC, process had even started. It uses language from the 1980s, when there was no deep understanding of what the climate crisis could be. It refers to taking what we need for this generation and leaving enough for future generations but does not refer to the fact that, in the context of environmental development and sustainability, we live on an interconnected planet and we cannot take more than the rest of the world needs. We need to be looking at what our fair share is now. It is not simply about this generation and the next generation. The climate crisis is happening right now and it is about what we do in Ireland in the context of what is happening in the rest of the world. In the context of those principles of the UNFCCC, which I mentioned, and the Paris Agreement, we have common but differentiated responsibilities, and that is a really important principle.

In the amendment, I have referred only to agreements we have signed up to, namely, the Paris Agreement, the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and, crucially, the UN sustainable development goals. If we are talking about sustainable development, it would seem to make sense we would try to align ourselves with the definition of "sustainable development" that relates to economic, social and environmental development, as we see in the SDGs, which Ireland helped to negotiate, pushed over the line and reaffirmed last September as the chair of the review of the SDGs coming towards their 2030 deadline.

In this context, I do not see why this dated language is still coming through. There is dated language, a dated concept and a dated version of sustainability when there are much better models out there, on which Ireland is deeply imprinted. These are not ideas I invented; they are ones Ireland has signed up to and, in some cases, led on. Why are we throwing aside all of that and going back to language from the 1980s? I hope the Minister of State will accept the amendment, but I would like in any event to hear an explanation of why this language was chosen, because it is not commonplace in other Bills and legislation. It has been in only the Higher Education Authority Bill and this, so it has come from only the Department of Education. In a Bill relating to research and innovation that is supposedly focused on and preparing us for the future, it seems bizarre that a dated and, in fact, dangerous interpretation of what environmental development and sustainability might be is being inserted. It is a definition from the 1980s, as I said, and previous to even the Rio conference in 1990, when the world collectively came to understand the real impact of climate change. Where is this coming from whereby it is coming through in legislation only from the Department of Education, whereas other legislation that has come from the same Government has reflected the language of the Paris Agreement, the sustainable development goals and, while it has not been referred to previously in legislation, the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, which Ireland supports?