Amendments Nos. 1 to 9, inclusive, are related and will be discussed together.
Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill 2015: From the Seanad
The Dáil went into Committee to consider amendments from the Seanad.
Seanad amendment No. 1:
Section 4: In page 9, line 1, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
I am pleased to inform the House of amendments made by Seanad Éireann to the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill 2015. It is a timely topic as governments around the word are seeking to negotiate a new climate agreement in Paris - I will be there myself quite soon - which will put us all on track to limit carbon emissions and help countries, both developed and developing, to accelerate their transition to low-carbon and sustainable economies and prepare for the inevitable impacts of a changing climate.
I will be heading to Paris for the high level session of the conference on Sunday and I do not underestimate the challenges next week to securing agreement on what is probably the most significant international conference on the future of our planet and the quality of life of our children and grandchildren. However, all of our hopes cannot rest on the Paris outcome alone. We can show leadership through Government, businesses and citizens taking actions to reduce our emissions here at home and blazing a trail for others to learn from and follow.
Deputies will recall that the Bill completed all Stages in the House on 8 October, having been amended in several important ways on Report Stage. The Bill then progressed to Seanad Éireann where debate proved positive and fruitful. In particular, on Committee Stage in that House, a number of matters were raised that were shown to warrant further scrutiny. On deliberation by me and the Ministers of State, Deputies Coffey and Phelan, and with the support of the Government, agreement was reached on Report Stage in the Seanad to make nine separate amendments to the Bill. These amendments achieve three important goals.
Amendment No. 1 provides that each successive national mitigation plan will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas rather than just Dáil Éireann. Amendments Nos. 2 and 3 provide that each successive national adaptation framework will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas rather than just Dáil Éireann. Amendments Nos. 4 to 9, inclusive, provide that the annual transition statement will be presented by the relevant Ministers to both Houses of the Oireachtas rather than just Dáil Éireann. I consider these amendments to be sensible and desirable changes to an already ambitious Bill. They will enable the input of Seanad Éireann to be heard fully by Ministers and the Government as we move forward with our mitigation and adaptation policy measures.
With these changes, which I hope the House can join with me in confirming, I believe it is now time to pass this historic Bill into law so that we can build on the preparatory work already under way and engage fully with the all important implementation phase. This includes, not least, the development of the State's first national mitigation plan which will chart a course towards meeting our immediate greenhouse gas emission mitigation targets up to 2020 as well as looking towards 2030 and 2050. Moreover, implementation will also involve development of the first statutory national adaptation framework and associated sectoral climate change adaptation plans so that we can plan and prepare ourselves for the inevitable impacts of climate change over the coming years and decades.
I thank the House for all the debates on this important topic to date.
I have seen many things in this House but today beats all. It is probably the biggest challenge facing humanity but there is just me and the Minister in here to discuss the amendments from the Seanad, which are virtually meaningless in terms of the content of this Bill. Their only purpose is to give the Seanad a role in some of the toothless measures proposed in the original Bill. Given the focus of the world is on what is happening in Paris at the moment, Ireland stands out as some sort of throwback. This morning Friends of the Earth roundly condemned the remarks of the Taoiseach in Paris when he revealed the Government's real attitude.
Deputy Daly has to speak to the amendments.
I am, a Cheann Comhairle. The Government's real attitude to climate change, which it itself exposed, is cynical and unsustainable. It has admitted it will not reach the targets and has no intention of doing so. We are led to believe that it deliberately seeks to justify these admissions because it hopes the next targets will not be as onerous.
We are here to discuss amendments to a Bill which is not at all ambitious. The Bill is light on targets-----
I have to intervene. The Deputy is around long enough to know that this is a simple amendment.
It is but-----
She cannot go back to Second Stage.
The Minister spoke of how happy he was to be going to Paris and made some overall and broader points.
I have to be fair. We are dealing with the amendments before us.
The amendments are technical measures-----
Exactly.
-----which give a role to the Seanad in some of the original mechanisms in the Bill. Whether the Seanad has a role or not is kind of irrelevant. It will not have any impact on the Bill itself.
I would not be saying that about the Seanad.
Presumably, we can speak to the name of the Bill.
It is only the amendments.
We will do our best to stick to the amendments.
Speak only to the amendments.
The discussion will be guillotined after 45 minutes but I am sure we will be able to make all our points within that timeframe. We will not delay the Minister beyond that, so I think we will be fine.
The Deputies will have to speak to the amendments though.
Yes, we will, because all the amendments are related to the heart of this Bill and how this Government proposes to fulfil its responsibility to reach our climate change targets. That is what this Bill is about and the amendments are dealing with giving the Seanad a role in that regard. I would, therefore, like to make points about it. The problem is that, with these amendments, the Seanad is trying to buy into a process but the Government's Bill is light on targets, action and substance. The Government speaks about reductions in emissions but, in actual fact, there is no plan on how to achieve them and there are no binding targets. The Seanad seeks to involve itself in the process but the process is a hollow one.
We have to put this in context. Ireland currently emits 75% more greenhouse gases than China on a per capita basis. We are the second worse per capita polluter in Europe after Poland. Total greenhouse gas emissions for Ireland, which has a population of 4.5 million, amount to more than the total for almost 400 million of the planet's poorest people. It is an absolute disgrace to have to listen to the commentary of the Taoiseach in Paris this weekend and comments of other colleagues of the Minister, such as the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney. Some 30% of Ireland's emissions come from agriculture but the agriculture sector is, in essence, getting a free pass from the Government. The Seanad seeks to bind itself into the oversight provisions but it is overseeing nothing. Overseeing a plan, when it does not have any targets, is an unachievable goal.
We heard more truths come out in Paris. The Minister's Government has consistently been in denial about these issues but it is worse than denial. It is a downright false presentation of facts. When presented with the reality by the EU Commission that Ireland was not going to meet its 2020 targets, Brian Hayes MEP is on the record as saying the complete opposite and that Ireland was on course to reach its targets. This was the absolute opposite of what was contained in the report. Within hours of his saying that earlier this year, the Minister came out and admitted ahead of the Paris talks that it was no secret that we were not going to meet our 2020 targets.
The Minister then went on to assert, incorrectly, I might add, that while we will not meet our targets, we are on track towards achieving them. Evidence from the EPA flagrantly contradicts what the Minister is on the record as having said. The EPA states that Ireland is not, in line with the climate action and low carbon development plan, on track towards decarbonising the economy in the long term and that it will face steep challenges post-2020 unless further policies and measures over and above those envisaged between now and 2020 are put in place. I cannot understand how the Seanad would look at the Bill, see the reality of the situation, which clearly spells out that we are not going to achieve our targets, and decide that the only amendments it sees fit to make are toothless ones that give it an oversight role.
We are not doing anything near enough in terms of climate justice and other measures. It is a real indictment of the Government's handling of the issue that it appointed Professor John FitzGerald to the expert advisory council on the climate. Professor FitzGerald is an able person but he is an economist. He is not a climate change expert. This sets the tone for how the Government views the issue and demonstrates it is not at all at the races in terms of this global challenge. It is frightening that Professor FitzGerald said it is our grandchildren and great-grandchildren who will benefit from this Bill, something which was echoed by the Minister a minute ago.
The Minister is way behind on this. It is our lives and those of our children which will be impacted by this crisis. This is urgent but the Government has done nothing to recognise that climate change is already real. Its consequences are not something that we will see in 100 years' time; parts of this globe are already experiencing the consequences. The climate disaster is the biggest contributor to the refugee situation which will only get worse in the coming years.
Thousands of people demonstrated on the streets of Dublin last weekend on this issue. They were part of a global movement of hundreds of thousands of people who are calling on world leaders to put a stop to this madness. It is absolutely reprehensible that the French Government chose to use the excuse of terrorism to lock down legitimate protest activity in Paris when it had no problem with other social gatherings in the city. Sadly, what we saw was an abuse of power to curtail democratic debate.
Ireland is sadly wanting on this issue. The only positive is that we are on the eve of an election and hopefully we will get a new Government which will treat this issue with the seriousness it deserves. This Government has been very poor in its handling of these matters.
I wonder what it is that the Seanad will oversee because I have had great difficulty in overseeing these matters from an Opposition perspective, even though one of my roles in this House is to hold the Government to account. We have been told that our national ambition is stated in the sectoral plans in areas like agriculture, transport and construction. Will the Seanad get sight of those sectoral plans earlier? I cannot see any ambition here. In fact, what I see is the very opposite of ambition. This Bill deals with climate inaction. It seems that there was a deliberate design on the part of the Government over the last few years to get us to a point where we would plead a special case for ourselves, as a very rich nation vis-à-vis very poor nations, in terms of what should be done.
Regardless of whether it is the Seanad or the Dáil which oversees this, the EPA has already told us that we will not reach the 2020 targets. Indeed, the Taoiseach has said that we will not reach the 2030 targets. Recent decisions made on transport, for example, are the very opposite of what we should do if we want to reduce the number of car journeys taken. The take up rate for the retrofit grants to improve the energy efficiency of homes has plummeted. These are just two areas in which we could be doing far more. The Government is taking a very dishonest approach to the agriculture sector by telling it that it will not be required to do anything in terms of mitigation because the Government will plead its case. We could do more in terms of developing carbon sinks in bogland and planting more trees but there is no avoiding the fact that under the 2020 Food Harvest plan, the national herd will grow by approximately 300,000 which is not sustainable. The Government's arguments are not sustainable in this area. The sectoral plans must be produced speedily so that the Seanad and Dáil can examine them to determine whether they will be effective.
I was disgusted by what the Taoiseach said in Paris this week. I was ashamed that Ireland was at that conference, pleading a special case. Earlier this year I met some French politicians at a meeting of the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht who were totally shocked when they realised there were no targets set down in this legislation. As I said during the Second Stage debate, if one sets out on a journey, one ought to know where one is going but we have no real guidance in this Bill. Everything is just pushed off into the future.
It is ironic that we are dealing with the closing stages of this Bill in the same week that the global conference on climate change is taking place in Paris. We have been very badly exposed in terms of our approach to this issue, which is fundamentally dishonest. By not doing something about climate change we are avoiding our moral obligations and not taking the leadership role that we should take in the context of climate justice. The Government is not being honest with people in this country because it is not pointing out what will happen when we miss our targets. Hard cash will have to be paid over when we miss our targets and taxpayers will have to come up with that hard cash. If people saw the full picture, the debate on this would be much more honest, including the debate with those sectors which must play a part in the context of mitigation. It is not acceptable for one sector to be told that it does not have to play a role in this regard. There are many in that sector who know full well that things will have to change for them and they are looking for leadership, which they are certainly not getting from this Government. What the Government is doing at the Paris conference is a complete embarrassment and no amount of additional oversight from Seanad Éireann will make a whit of a difference because this is one of the weakest pieces of climate legislation which we are, disgracefully, enacting at a time when the world is supposed to be taking the Paris conference seriously. This Government is not taking it seriously and has not done so during the current Dáil. This has been a very dishonest enterprise.
I thank the Deputies for their comments on this very historic day. The issue of involving the Seanad in oversight was debated in this House. When we debated the legislation in the Seanad, it became obvious that getting that House's views on mitigation, transition, adaptation and the annual statements would be important. These amendments provide that those statements will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. It is positive that we will get the views of both Houses of the Oireachtas on this. Again, I thank the Deputies for their comments.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 2:
Section 5: In page 10, line 11, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 3:
Section 6: In page 10, line 21, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 4:
Section 14: In page 19, line 25, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 5:
Section 14: In page 19, line 30, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 6:
In page 19, line 33, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 7:
Section 14: In page 19, line 37, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 8
Section 14: In page 20, line 39, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendment No. 9:
Section 14: In page 21, line 8, to delete “Dáil Éireann” and substitute “each House of the Oireachtas”.
Seanad amendment agreed to.
Seanad amendments reported.