Annual Emission Allocation Units Purchase Agreement: Motion

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (Deputy Ossian Smyth)

I move:

That Dáil Eireann approves the terms of the Annual Emission Allocation Units Purchase Agreement for target compliance purposes under Decision No. 406/2009/EC, signed on 14 February 2023, a copy of which was laid before Dáil Eireann on 13 March 2023.

Thank you, a Cheann Comhairle, for the opportunity to speak on this important matter. As a member of the EU, Ireland has annual legally binding emissions reduction targets to meet. These targets are set out in EU legislation and compliance checks are carried out to ensure member states meet their obligations.

For the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, which covers the period 2013 to 2020, Ireland, and all EU member states, contributed collectively through an EU burden-sharing agreement, known as the EU effort sharing decision. This covers sectors that do not fall under the EU emissions trading system. They include transport, agriculture, buildings, and light industry.

A major feature of the Kyoto Protocol was the establishment of flexible market mechanisms to allow for cost-effective trading in the marketplace. This is reflected in the legislative framework of the EU effort sharing decision, which provides for several compliance options beyond direct emissions reductions that enable member states to achieve their targets as efficiently and effectively as possible. This includes options to bank, borrow, purchase and trade carbon credits, also referred to as annual emission allocation, AEA, units.

The deadline for demonstrating compliance with 2020 - in other words, the final year covered by the EU effort sharing decision was 17 February 2023. Ireland's final emissions for 2020 exceeded our target by approximately 7 Mt CO2 eq. Failure to comply would result in a multiple of the deficit being deducted from Ireland's allowance for 2021, and it could lead to a formal EU infringement procedure being launched against the State, which would be reputationally damaging. To make up the shortfall to our 2020 target, 3 million international carbon credits that had been purchased in earlier years were carried forward to use. With one carbon credit representing one tonne of CO2 equivalent emissions, this left a gap of 4.15 Mt CO2 eq still to be addressed.

In July 2022, the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, brought a memorandum to Government advising that all available options for compliance should be considered, including that of trading with other EU member states. Following analysis of available compliance options and bilateral engagement with member states, the Government agreed to the option that maximised cost efficiency and secured the best possible value for the Irish taxpayer, which was to enter into an agreement with Slovakia for the purchase of 4.15 million AEA units at a total cost of €2.9 million, which comes to 70 cent per AEA unit. The agreement also specifies that proceeds from the transfer are to be used exclusively for climate change activities in the Slovak Republic. On 14 February 2023, following Government approval, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, signed the agreement with Slovakia, which allowed for the immediate transfer of the required 4.15 million AEA units to Ireland's account on the Union registry. This enabled Ireland to be in full compliance with the EU effort sharing decision by the European Commission deadline.

Following the advice of the Attorney General, this motion is now being brought before the House to seek approval of the terms of the agreement, which would then become binding on the State. This would close out compliance for 2020 and mean that Ireland has been fully compliant with its obligations under the EU effort sharing decision. As a whole, the EU has outperformed its collective emissions reduction target over the 2013 to 2020 period.

The EU effort sharing decision is succeeded by the effort sharing regulation for the period 2021 to 2030, which brings a considerable step up in ambition as the EU moves towards a 55% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. Under the recently revised effort sharing regulation, as part of the EU's Fit for 55 Package, Ireland's target is to achieve a 42% reduction in emissions by 2030 relative to 2005 levels. Ireland has supported the increased ambition. It is fully in line with our national climate objectives, as legislated for in the 2021 climate Act. While it will be a great challenge, we have put the framework in place to enable the State to fully achieve its targets. Under the effort sharing regulation, the compliance options available to states are reduced. For example, it is no longer possible to use international allowances for compliance. The cost price of purchasing AEA units for the period to 2030 is projected to be far in excess of what we have been able to negotiate for 2020. It is therefore essential that domestic policy and investment are focused on significantly reducing direct emissions out to 2030.

The "final warning" provided last week, by the latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, must focus all our minds on the urgency of taking immediate and meaningful action to accelerate emissions reductions. It is important that we continue to demonstrate our commitment to meeting our targets, in support of the wider aspirations of the Paris Agreement and of the European Green Deal. Achieving a 42% reduction over the next decade will be a major challenge, one which will require concerted action across all of government and society. The Climate Action Plan 2023 sets out the necessary additional policies and measures that Ireland must take to meet these more ambitious emissions reductions targets. It is essential that we maintain a high level of climate ambition and accelerate full implementation of these policies and measures and that we continue to demonstrate our commitment to meeting our emissions reduction targets, in support of the wider aspirations of the European Green Deal. I look forward to hearing the contributions from all Members on this important issue.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue, but I note that it has been put forward on the deadline, echoing what seems to be the Government's usual style - rushing things through at the absolute last minute. There are a number of points that it is important to raise.

The Government is going to purchase 4.15 million carbon credits from Slovakia for a total of €2.9 million. This comes on the back of a further €121 million paid for by the taxpayer for failure to meet our 2020 emissions targets under the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol.

The State had committed to cut emissions across multiple sectors by 20% but fell far short of this target, missing it by 7%. This is disappointing, although certainly not surprising when we consider the legacy of the two previous Administrations, first a Fine Gael-led coalition and then a confidence-and-supply coalition of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil. Climate rhetoric was not matched by decisive climate action where it mattered, a pattern that the current coalition Government seems determined to uphold.

We know Ireland is falling way behind most of its EU counterparts and that it is struggling to shake its reputation internationally as a climate laggard when it comes to actual action. While we have risen a few places, from 46th to 37th, on this year's climate change performance index, what matters most is this: Ireland remains an underperforming country. This is confirmed by this year's Sustainable Progress Index. Ireland is ranked a paltry ninth out of 14 comparable EU countries on the environmental dimension. For all this Government's talk, the progress is nowhere near good enough. The drivers behind our bad performance are hardly surprising. They are indicative of a Government that is acting as if the climate crisis and cost-of-living crisis were taking place elsewhere. It is mildly aware of them but happy to continue with business as usual. Yesterday, it asked us to cheer when it announced, in SEAI's quarterly progress report, that it had progressed by less than 2% towards its target to retrofit 500,000 homes to a B2 standard. If this is not walking with blinkered vision, I do not know what is. The climate crisis is not something we can ignore, nor is the fact that many ordinary families and workers are struggling to make ends meet. Energy poverty is at the highest level ever recorded. All of this is occurring in the context of rising polluting emissions and disproportionately high household - and state - reliance on fossil fuels.

We know our next set of targets will come in 2030. We also know we are already behind. There is a very real chance, perhaps even a likelihood, that Ireland will fall short yet again. Sinn Féin is certainly not alone in sounding the alarm about the dangers of staying on the current Government's trajectory. Friends of the Earth, Wind Energy Ireland, the EPA and the Climate Change Advisory Council, to name but a few, have all come forward to voice concern and warn about the likelihood and risk of failure. This is something we simply cannot afford. We cannot buy our way out of this one with the modern-day indulgence of carbon credits, by which an expensive piece of paper absolves us of our shortcomings. Even if we ignore the fact that any chance of creating a sustainable and liveable future is contingent on drastically cutting emissions, we simply cannot afford the estimated €8 billion that the failure to meet our 2030 climate targets would cost us.

The opportunity cost of spending nearly €125 million on carbon credits today is painful enough. How many homes could have been retrofitted with that money? How many solar panels and heat pumps could have been installed? How many sustainable-energy communities could have been supported? How many families could have been lifted out of energy poverty? Although the price is high, it is not the Irish taxpayer who suffers most at the hand of such ineffectual policies; it is the poorest people on the planet, who are already feeling the full force of the climate crisis, regularly losing their homes, livelihoods and even lives. It is also the planet itself that pays the ultimate price. We heard several weeks ago that over half of all Irish plant species are in decline and that we are in the midst of an Irish biodiversity emergency. Environmentalists are not being alarmist when they say nature in Ireland is dying.

What does failing by €8 billion look like? The consequences of such an abject failure would be cataclysmic. We cannot let that happen. We need a change in approach. The focus here needs to be on driving down emissions. The plans exist but they need to be implemented. Where they are deeply inequitable in so many areas, they need to be altered to ensure there is a just transition – a just transition for everyone.

Deputy Duncan Smith

Last week's IPCC was described by the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. António Guterres, as a code red for humanity and a death knell for coal and fossil fuels. The report showed we are now on course to pass the 1.5°C marker in a matter of years, if not decades. If the 1.5°C target is to be met, carbon dioxide emissions will need to be cut by two thirds in the next 12 years.

We were bemused to see headlines, after the publication of the report, stating the situation is grim but that there are solutions available. The issue is not a lack of solutions to the crisis we face. We have known for years that the situation is grim and that we have options; the issue is the absence of political will to take radical action on climate – the political will to make decisions that will be difficult but that will help us meet the challenge we face. That challenge does not just lie ahead; we are in the midst of it.

I would have hoped the IPCC report would serve as a final warning for the Government so it will get its head out of the sand on climate change. It is outrageous but not at all surprising that we are here today discussing the Government trying to buy its way out of having to make real, meaningful change. That is exactly what this agreement is. It is the Government spending €2.9 million to buy its way out of a problem. That is €2.9 million that could have gone towards helping our farmers change the way they use their land, public transport initiatives such as the Labour Party's €9 climate ticket and clean travel infrastructure, and investment in cleaner energy. Instead, it is going towards getting this Government out of Dodge for missing its own targets. Time and again, the Government has proven that it has not given the climate crisis the attention it warrants. You would be fooled into thinking it was by its rhetoric. It is a Government that is strong on rhetoric but weak on delivery. There is no doubt that the climate action plan of 2023 is an ambitious document and among the most ambitious in the world. That is all well and good, but, without the political will to meet that ambition, the climate action plan amounts to nothing but lip service and rhetoric.

This proposal is just another indication that the Government lacks the political will and is lacking in its delivery. Climate action cannot be about ambitions alone; it must also be about outcomes. The outcomes so far have been dismal. It would appear that elements of this Government have simply given up on reaching their targets. We know, thanks to documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine, for example, has conceded it will not meet its methane emissions reduction targets. We also know from reports that the ambition contained in the 2019 climate action plan to tighten scrutiny regarding pension fund investment in fuels appears to be quietly rolled back by the Department of Social Protection. Indeed, there is no such ambition included in more recent climate action plans.

The Taoiseach has recently admitted Ireland is a climate laggard. We are among the highest emitters in Europe, 60% above the EU average. We are now at a point where, after three years of this Government, our emissions are higher than before Covid. The Government has blamed that on the reopening of our economy but that entirely misses the point. If anything, the reopening of our economy in a post-Covid world presented an opportunity to do things differently. The Government has failed to grasp that opportunity. We in the Labour Party have offered a way to radically transform the way we do transport – for example, by proposing our €9-per-month climate ticket for unlimited access to all public transport. This would take around 23,000 cars off our roads and have a genuine and meaningful impact on reducing our emissions. Not only has the Government failed to take the proposal on board but the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications has dismissed making public transport more accessible, saying it would lead to more unnecessary journeys. That is irresponsible to the point that it is offensive.

The IPCC report paints a bleak picture but the fact of the matter is that the situation in which we now find ourselves is even bleaker. When I was reading the minutes of the negotiations between different governments on the language of the report, a point that stood out was the pervasive influence of petrol states, which sought to have their interests protected to the greatest extent possible. If we are serious about tackling climate change globally, we need to stand up to these petrol states and their lobbyists. The influence they had on the proceedings at COP27 made headlines. Now they have got their paws on this report.

We previously called for Ireland to be a leading green state at the vanguard of climate action. I reiterate that call now but we need to get our own house in order if we are to achieve the objective. The bottom line is this, however: Ireland will never be a leading green state under this Government because it simply refuses to give the climate crisis the attention it warrants and to deliver where necessary. The proposal before us today amounts to nothing more than the Government trying to buy its way out of a problem and shirk its responsibilities. When it comes to climate action, it is all bark and no bite.

Deputy Jennifer Whitmore

We stand here today, as spokespeople for the climate within our respective parties, debating not climate initiatives, climate actions or climate targets but an accounting exercise.

It is an accounting exercise where Ireland will purchase 4.1 million carbon credits that will cost €2.9 million to give the pretence that we are doing our bit for climate action and to ease our collective climate consciences. This is on top of already spending €50 million through a similar exercise with transfers from Denmark and Estonia for missing our 2020 target. It was reported today by Caroline O'Doherty in the Irish Independent that the financial consequences of not meeting our climate targets could be more than €8 billion by 2030, which is an incredible amount of money.

However, the true cost of this failure goes far beyond this eye-watering figure of €8 billion. The environmental, societal and broader economic cost of failure is immeasurable. I have worked in and studied the area of the environment since I was 17. Over that time, I have seen many Governments come and go and have seen many promises made and broken by Governments. I have seen so many opportunities lost over that period. It is becoming progressively more difficult to keep the faith and belief that we can change the trajectory on this issue. I know many people feel as I do on this. I want the Government to succeed when it comes to addressing our biodiversity and climate crisis and I want the Minister of State and his Green Party colleagues to succeed on those issues.

However, the time comes when there is a need for a reality check. Three years into this Government and on a day when the Government is signing off on a cheque for €3 million to pay another country to undertake climate action on our behalf, we need this reality check now. The question is whether the Minister of State and the Government are achieving what they need to achieve when it comes to climate action. Are they getting the job done or at this stage in the game, are they essentially giving cover to their coalition colleagues to give the veneer of environmentalism? Let us look at the record. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act was a significant achievement. It was incredibly important that it was done so I commend the Minister of State and his colleagues on bringing that in. It lays the foundation for everything that needs to follow. The question for us now concerns the deliverability of all those measures and actions that will enable us to meet obligations under the Act. Are they happening? On the Government's watch, emissions continue to rise. They went up by 4.7% in 2021 compared to 2020 and are currently 1.1% higher than they were pre-Covid. The Government still has 481,000 retrofits to B2 level that it needs to achieve by 2030 out of its target of 500,000. There is a 24-month waiting list for retrofits for people at risk of energy poverty to help them make their homes climate-sustainable. Even the most basic infrastructure has not been rolled out. It is taking more than a year and counting for a single charging point to be installed in Blessington for electric vehicles, so it is clear that progress is not being made.

Probably most poignantly or incredibly, only a few weeks ago, the Minister of State and his Government and party colleagues voted against including an amendment of mine in the Environmental Protection Agency (Emergency Electricity Generation) (Amendment) Act that would have meant that this Act had to comply with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act. This was an incredible thing for the Government to do. It said it did not want that Act to have to be in compliance with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act. This and all the other measures I mentioned constitute a clear signal that the Government's policies are not working and that the Government is no longer working for the environment and a secure future not only for us but for our children. I ask the Minister of State to change course or else we will never be able to address the climate actions we need to undertake.

Deputy Mick Barry

Can the Minister of State confirm that he or the senior Minister signed this contract with Slovakia last month? Can he confirm that the decision was made without any reference to this Dáil debate and that what is happening here is merely a rubber-stamping exercise?

The top ten carbon emitters in Ireland are almost without exception private business interests, including no less than four separate cement plants, yet the bulk of the €3 million the State is paying here for exceeding the carbon targets and the bulk of the far greater sums that will be paid out elsewhere will not be paid by those cement plants nor by the privately owned airlines that put three of our airports into that top ten nor by industry as a whole. Instead the bulk of the funding will come from compliant PAYE taxpayers. This is surely a contradiction of the Green Party policy that the polluter should pay.

Deputy Bríd Smith

This figure of €2.9 million gives us just a hint of the failure in this State. The fact that we can purchase credits from Slovakia gives us another hint that the entire EU trading system and sharing efforts are a form of a giant accounting trick. I think the Minister of State knows this. As someone said before, it is like a medieval indulgence that allows you to buy your way out while you continue to sin.

The full cost of carbon credits may well be more than €120 million in recent years and even this figure barely touches on the future cost, which is in the region of €8 billion by 2030. Despite 27 COPs and various lofty declarations, the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere continue to rise. Far from reaching the inadequate targets that were set for reductions, this Government is overseeing an increase in emissions. This week, as reported by the Business Post, we find that Ireland is a virtual shadow land. A strange virtual reality exists here. Not only are we a tax haven for corporations and banks and not only do we operate a shadow banking sector and a shadow taxing sector, we also seem to have a shadow energy sector where hyper-scale data centres have as much energy as the official State national energy grid. It would be a mistake to think that these kind of trades are okay or in any way progressive in dealing with the climate crisis.

The State has purchased more than €120 million in previous years. The NTMA has invested World Bank funds and trades in various schemes as well as having credits from previous years. All of these are a form of credit denial as far as People Before Profit is concerned. It is a giant accounting trick that pretends to deal with humanity's greatest existentialist crisis by re-tendering market mechanisms and adopting neoliberal economic jargon and thinking somehow that we imagine CO2 out of the atmosphere. The reason Slovakia has credits to sell is not that it is a paradigm of climate action virtue but that the state's credit will not even reach its own targets. According to the EU, Slovakia will fall well short of its own 2030 targets while its emissions rose by 13% by 2020 compared with 2005.

This farce means that this State, which is failing to reduce its own emissions, buys made-up credits from a state with rising emissions, which will also fail to meet its target, in order to comply with an accounting exercise so that we can tell each other at great length that we are addressing the threat to humanity's future. Carbon credits, be they under this effort-sharing scheme or the EU trading scheme, are fraudulent. They are efforts to marry the needs of the market and capitalist expansion with the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. These needs cannot be married or reconciled. The promised shake up in the EU's scheme will not address the fundamental flaws in the idea of carbon trading. We cannot trade our way out of the climate crisis and we cannot use the market and capitalist expansion to deal with a crisis caused by markets and capitalist expansion driven by the over-use of fossil fuels on our planet.

I believe the Minister of State knows this. It is a fraud and a set up to make it look like we are dealing with climate catastrophe and doing our bit when it is purely an accounting trick.

Deputy Matt Shanahan

The debate focuses on our binding requirements to meet climate-reduction targets under EU legislation and compliance agreements. The framework the Minister of State referred to is the second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol from 2013 to 2020, or the last nine years. The framework at EU level provides for various compliance options beyond our making direct emission reductions, including the partaking of the trade of annual emissions unit, that is, a way for us to buy our way out of missing our targets on climate reduction. He said Ireland has, through negotiation with other member states, entered into an agreement to purchase climate credits from Slovakia which will help us meet our obligations under the EU sharing decision. The cost of the initiative is €2.9 million. He said that by 2030, were we to continue in such a vein, the costs would be significantly higher and I am sure punitive damages will also be levied on Ireland for our failure to meet our climate reduction targets. The target he mentioned was a 42% reduction on the 2005 level up to 2030. That is not too far off a 50% reduction, that is, half. How are we to meet these ongoing reductions? How is climate reduction measured? I have raised climate calculators here before. The EU has a climate calculator that we are all working to. Others dispute how it is measured.

There is also carbon sequestration, particularly in our woodlands and hedgerows. When will we get a landscape that measures the sequestration that we are doing in Ireland, that is, our hedgerows, pasture lands and woodlands? How is that taken into Europe’s analysis of our carbon and our climate emissions?

I have also raised here before the very slow pace of our renewables development. These Houses recently passed legislation to allow planning permission to be set aside, particularly for farm buildings, to put up solar units. However, the grant aid is hard to understand. People are having difficulty understanding what the schemes are and how to access them, what the level of support is and what the feed in tariff should be. We need to start getting onto this. We are here talking about reducing our climate burden but we cannot do it until we start generating our own energy that is clean energy. By the same token around our coasts, we are yet to commence the new maritime area regulatory authority, MARA. I understand that will not be done by the end of the year yet we are entering into agreements with people looking at wind farm surveys, giving them licences to survey off our coast. I have raised the rate of community contribution proposed under the wind farm projects the Minister of State’s Department will licence. It seems as though one of the largest wind farms being proposed off the south coast will have a community dividend of between €15 million and €18 million for a licence period that will run to 25 years. I do not see how that stacks up in any way, in giving support to local communities or in trying to encourage them to look at wind-developed pylons on their ocean frontage. In Scotland, there was a very robust community dividend policy, a sort of community contribution, where people could invest. We need to do that. I wish the Minister of State would publish what is in the proposed contracts he is talking about awarding in the future and let people see the full analysis of what will be on offer for the wind-generated sector of Ireland’s economy. We keep saying this is the game changer for Ireland and we are going to have so much wind. I hate to say it but every other European country with access to oceans is looking at offshore wind in a big way. It raises the question: if we are coming late to the party, who is going to be buying the excess energy we are going to be producing? What income will be available to Ireland from it? What offset will it offer our climate reduction targets?

Deputy Mattie McGrath

Are we here talking about closing the stable door when the horse is gone? Has this already been signed and are we merely rubber stamping it here? I also have huge issues about Ireland buying these credits from Slovakia, which is not meeting its own targets. It is farcical. I have huge issues with the whole roll-out. There are schemes and schemes across all-of-government. Housing is no different. It is actually worse. These are convoluted schemes people cannot access. For years we talked about Northern Ireland where there are solar panels on every farm building and every place you pass. Here, we have finally removed planning permission but the grant schemes and support schemes are so convoluted, and are deliberately designed as such, no one can draw them down. I say that hand on my heart. Many other schemes are designed the same way. They are designed by Departments which seem to want to make things more difficult for people.

There is the Government’s green dream here. Many aspects of it are just big fear. It is frightening people. I am not a climate change denier but the demonising of farmers, agricultural people and rural people is shameful. As other speakers said, we do not have electric charge points for vehicles in the country and we certainly do not have the tractors, equipment or whatever stuff to harvest our crops and for farm production. We will keep going here with culling cow numbers or the cutting of nitrates and everything so that we will not be able to produce enough food for our people to live on. It is shameful.

All the NGOs are lined up behind the Government and they are well funded. There is nearly €5.5 billion. There are all the different agencies. The EPA is coming out with reports on things that it has no business going near. It could go to plenty other places to do its work but it is not doing it. It is the greatest con job and today proves it where the Government is doing this deal with Slovakia, a country that is not meeting its own targets.

Deputy Michael Collins

We completely oppose this motion at every level as it represents something akin to a deal from a gangster movie. It is completely outrageous that the Cabinet approved the purchase of 4.1 million carbon credits from Slovakia at a cost of €2.9 million in some sort of hypocritical way to help meet the 2020 emission targets. The fallacy of this deal is exposed by the fact that Slovakia was allowed to increase its emissions by 13% by 2020 compared with 2005 levels while Ireland had to reduce its emissions within specific sectors of the economy by 20% under EU regulation. This means that Irish people are being unfairly burdened to achieve unrealistic net-zero targets. Clearly the Slovakian Government negotiated a much better deal at EU level than Ireland.

The Irish people are bearing the heavy burden of achieving these unrealistic targets. The Rural Independent Group read the contract documents associated with the deal which the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, signed on 14 February 2023 with his counterpart in Slovakia. The next day we issued a stern statement calling on the Government to abandon this dreadful deal immediately. This is why we will not support the motion. This is a scandalous situation in which we find ourselves.

I met with the Irish Farmers Association and the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association during the week. Irish agriculture and dairy farmers are being ruined by this Government with its nitrates directive. It destroys ordinary farmers and the ordinary hard-working dairy farmer with its carry on. It better row back or Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael will face this on the doorsteps because the Green Party is finished anyway.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae

It is absolutely and utterly disgraceful to do this with Irish money. It is public money from people who are working hard and paying taxes. The Government would not be able to do it only for people like that who are out early in the morning and doing their best to try to keep their households going. The Government is doing this with their money instead of supplementing or helping them with electricity costs and the cost of fuel and oil. Instead, the Government is trying to stop people cutting turf to try to keep themselves warm and doing no harm in the world. At the same time, Germany is mining for coal and Russia is burning coal.

I cannot understand how the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, can sit side-by-side with a man like this who is doing this with Irish money considering the state we are in. Anyone would think he had goldmines, diamonds or oil flowing into barrels. Instead of that, the Government is taking this money and paying for paper. It is being done to the communities that we are trying to represent. The state of them; they are perished with the cold. Now food security is being jeopardised with the nitrates and the stopping of food production by farmers. What is the Government at and when is it going to stop?

Deputy Joan Collins

I was to share time with Deputy McNamara, but he does not seem to be in the Chamber at the moment.

Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, published its 2023 report, which has been described as a "final warning" for the survival of humans on the planet. The IPCC now estimates that we will pass the target of 1.5 degrees in years not decades if we do not rapidly change course in our climate action. We know the effects of climate will hit the poorest first and hardest, not just globally but in Ireland too. The Society of St. Vincent de Paul estimates that as much as 40% of Irish people are living in energy poverty, while the fossil fuel companies use increases in fuel costs to maximise their profits. The Government seems to be giving the final say on the windfall tax to the same companies whose profit the tax is supposed to be targeting.

The Government has been implementing regressive taxes and grants to fight climate change. It has introduced the insulation grants that many people cannot access. It brought in carbon taxes that affect the poorest the most. It talks about the sustainability while poverty and homelessness increase. We are supposed to have a Green Party in the Government who fights for climate action. Instead we have a Green Party that swaps making people homeless, and betraying the victims of mother and baby institutions, for missed climate targets and bike lanes. The Government makes it harder to drive while reducing the number of buses and delaying public transport plans. It will not listen to people who have been impacted by the carbon taxes but will listen to corporations about windfall taxes. Now the leader of the Green Party is swapping taxpayers' money for carbon credits to cover up policy failures. How on earth are we supposed to believe anything this Government says when one part of it, which proposes to fight climate change, is spending up to €3 million filling gaps left by its failure to cut emissions?

The Government has no vision. It has no vision on housing or on healthcare and certainly no vision on the climate crisis. We need to take the money and the power off the giant corporations, whose greed caused this crisis, so that we can implement the change needed to stop irreversible damage to this planet. Do your job, Minister, because we are running out of time.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (Deputy Ossian Smyth)

I have listened carefully to the Deputies' contributions. We should bear in mind that the 2013 to 2030 effort-sharing decision, that is, the EU's plan to reduce its emissions by 20% during the last decade, succeeded and achieved what it set out to do. Emissions were reduced by 20%. That was a collective decision by all EU member states. Each member state, including Ireland, was given an amount it had to fulfil and Ireland fell short at the end on the amounts by which it was meant to reduce emissions in the last decade. However, other countries overachieved. Europe succeeded collectively and we share one atmosphere. While I would have preferred if additional climate actions were brought in to make up our numbers in the last decade before the Green Party was in power, that did not happen and, as a result, there was a deficit in 2020 of 4 megatonnes of CO2. This has been made up by buying surplus emissions from Slovakia and this deal was made on 14 February. Some Deputies asked whether the deal had been done. The deal has been done. We have not paid the money yet but the deal was agreed. We have 60 days to pay and the Attorney General advises that we should go to the Dáil and seek approval for this decision. That is what is happening.

Some 4.15 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent has to be purchased. We will be in compliance with the 2020 goals of the effort-sharing decision, but we will have purchased our compliance from another country. I would rather not be doing this deal but we have to do it. The cost of this deal comes to 70 cent per tonne of CO2. The figure of 70 cent per tonne is a small fraction of the roughly €90 per tonne that a European Union emission trading system, ETS, allowance is now trading for on the market. Therefore, 70 cent per tonne was a good price and we are lucky that we paid €2.9 million and not 100 times that amount, which would have been the ETS market price.

The option of taking another country's surplus will not be available to us this decade. Deputy O'Rourke asked, if this is what happened in 2020, with €2.9 million being required at the end of the last year to settle, what will the amount be in 2030 if we do not meet our targets. We expect it will be a lot more severe per tonne. The Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform has done some scenario planning on that and has come up with very large numbers, depending on the extent to which we comply with the emission reduction targets. It is incredibly important that we reduce our emissions this decade, that we follow along with the rest of Europe and that we reduce our emissions by roughly 50%. The emission reduction target set down in law in Ireland is 51% by 2030 and that is in line with the rate that the new effort-sharing regulation says we should reduce it by. They are using a slightly different base but the intention is to cut emissions by 50% across Europe by 2030.

I will address some questions that were raised. Deputies asked if this deal has been done. Yes, the deal has been done. We are looking for ratification. Deputy Whitmore wants the Government to succeed in dealing with the biodiversity and climate crisis and I appreciate that. She has made a lot of constructive suggestions over the past few months. Deputy Barry asked whether the deal has been done. Deputy Shanahan was looking for details on how to account for sequestration and removals, particularly in agriculture. I am happy to provide a briefing to him and other Deputies who want that. It is a reasonable request. He also asked about the deployment of solar and other renewables. The deployment of solar has started within the past few years. We now have commercial solar farms. Two major developments happened in the deployment of solar. One was that we removed the planning permission requirements. I can directly see many public and private sector bodies now deploying large quantities of solar without the need for planning permission, which has been enormously helpful. Anyone who wants to put solar panels on the roof of their home does not have to apply for planning permission no matter how many they have. People can also get paid for the electricity they generate and provide to the grid. These have been significant changes that will help in the deployment of solar more broadly.

As my time has expired, I ask Members to support the ratification of this deal.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 28 Mar 2023