Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 398: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if the proposal for an international agreement on a contraction and convergence response to climate change has been discussed at a Heads of State level during the Irish European Union Presidency; and if he intends to include the issue in the hand-over portfolio he will pass on to the upcoming Dutch Presidency. [13426/04]

Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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I refer to the reply to Question No. 192 of 6 May 2004. Contraction and convergence is a proposal for achieving global reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, promoted primarily by the London-based Global Commons Institute, a non-governmental organisation. It is one of many potential models towards its stated purpose. The discussion at European heads of state level on necessary action to prevent dangerous interference with global climate systems is a more widely based one, and has been advanced during the Irish Presidency.

On 2 March 2004 the Environment Council, in preparing an input for the European Council and in reference to the development of medium and longer term emission reduction strategies, including targets, highlighted inter alia the need to ensure that overall global temperature increase should not exceed 2oC above pre-industrial levels, and to take into account the findings of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.

The European Council on 25/26 March 2004 confirmed that it looks forward to considering such emission reduction strategies, including targets, at its spring meeting in 2005. The Commission has been invited to prepare a cost benefit analysis, which takes account both of environmental and competitiveness considerations.

Progress has also been made in other areas of the international climate agenda during the Irish Presidency, including a first reading agreement between the Council and the European Parliament on a directive linking the Kyoto Protocol project mechanisms Joint Implementation, JI, and the Clean Development Mechanism, CDM, to the new European emissions trading scheme. This will encourage investment in sustainable development globally with the specific aim of achieving greenhouse gas emissions reductions, and the recognition of credits from approved emissions reductions projects in the European scheme.

Consideration of options for further action post-2012, the end of the first Kyoto period, underway since autumn 2002, continues to be undertaken by a working party reporting to the Environment Council. Contraction and convergence continues to be considered in that context.