Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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149. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment if he is satisfied that the carbon budgets satisfy the principle of climate justice. [18795/22]

Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party)
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The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 establishes our climate objectives in law and will underpin national climate action in the medium and long-term. Under the Act, the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) submitted their first carbon budget programme in October 2021. The programme establishes a pathway to achieving our legally binding climate objectives – it will deliver on our commitment to a 51% reduction in our carbon emissions by 2030 and it will set us on the way to net zero no later than 2050. Last December I initiated the process for the adoption of the proposed Carbon Budgets. The motion being considered this week in both Houses of the Oireachtas is the final step in this adoption process, but only the beginning of the implementation challenge.

I believe that the carbon budgets satisfy the principle of climate justice. They are aligned with Ireland’s obligations under the UNFCCC and Paris Agreement, and these agreements are themselves rooted in the principles of climate justice on a global scale. The CCAC, in line with the 2021 Climate Act, prepared the budgets having regard to climate justice. Their analysis is laid out in the Carbon Budget Technical Report, published last October. At a national level, appropriately designed climate policies, measures and actions have huge potential to open up new employment and enterprise opportunities, including targeted supports to help particularly impacted groups, regions and communities to adapt to the new economy, as committed to the Climate Action Plan 2021. While the costs of climate action will be more acutely by some people, groups and sectors, this Government has shown itself to be fully committed to protecting those most vulnerable and to ensuring a just transition through interventions such as the progressive redistribution of carbon tax receipts; one hundred per cent funding of energy efficiency interventions for poorer households; and implementing a Just Transition Plan for the Midlands to address the end of peat harvesting for energy generation.