I move amendment No. 3:
In page 12, to delete lines 30 and 31 and substitute the following:
“(ii) by the insertion of the following definitions:
“ ‘Act of 2014’ means the Companies Act 2014;
‘carbon budget’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are permitted during the budget period;
‘climate action plan’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 4(1)(a) of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means the annual plan prepared by the Minister to pursue the national climate objective;
‘emissions’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means in relation to greenhouse gases, emission of those gases into earth’s atmosphere attributable to industrial, agricultural, energy or other anthropogenic activities in the State;
‘greenhouse gas’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 1 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means—
(a) carbon dioxide,
(b) methane,
(c) nitrous oxide,
(d) hydrofluorocarbons,
(e) perfluorocarbons,
(f) sulphur hexafluoride, or
(g) nitrogen trifluoride;
‘national climate change adaptation framework’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 5 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means the plan prepared by the State which specifies the application of adaptation measures in different sectors and by a local authority in its administrative area;
‘national climate objective’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 3(1) of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means the State’s obligation to reduce the extent of further global warming, to pursue and achieve, by no later than the end of the year 2050, the transition to a climate resilient, biodiversity rich, environmentally sustainable and climate neutral economy;
‘national long term climate action strategy’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 4 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means the long term strategy which specifies the manner in which it is proposed to achieve the national climate objective;
‘sectoral adaptation plan’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 6 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended), and means the plans made by each Minister of the Government for which each such Minister of the Government has responsibility;
‘sectoral emissions ceiling’ has the meaning assigned to it in section 6C of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 (as amended).”,”.
As the Ceann Comhairle stated, these amendments are grouped because they are related. This is the focal point of the debate that happened on Committee Stage. Very similar amendments were put forward on Committee Stage. They were not pressed in the understanding that the Minister of State and the Department were going to consider the matters to which they relate. There was a meeting due to be held - it has since come and gone - and we were hopeful that the Minister of State would bring forward amendments like these on Report Stage. He obviously has not done so. As a result, I have a sinking feeling he is not planning to accept the amendments. It will be very bad if that is the case.
What this is about is very simple. It is about changing the mandate of GNI to ensure that it is in line with our climate obligations. It makes no sense at all for the Government to say it is absolutely clear on the necessity of action to avoid climate catastrophe and has a legally binding climate action plan but then does not require State-owned corporations and semi-State bodies to have mandates to act in line with that. This is especially true when we are dealing with the connection of households and businesses to fossil fuel systems. We understand, I assume, that the way to avoid the impending climate catastrophe is to rapidly transition away from fossil fuels. That does not mean connecting more people to gas, which is a fossil fuel; it means weaning people off gas. However, we have a situation whereby GNI is proposing to add 14,600 new domestic connections and 2,629 industrial and commercial connections. Some of those are going to be data centres. The latter, when faced with a moratorium on connection to the electricity network, have turned to direct connection to the gas network. They will not go through the process of burning fossil fuels to generate electricity that is then used in data centres, but will instead burn fossil fuels directly, with the emissions going straight into the atmosphere.
Last year, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, wrote to GNI asking it not to sign any more contracts to connect data centres powered by on-site fossil fuel generation, but the answer from the company was to the effect that it is mandated under the Gas Acts to supply connections requested by third parties. What I am trying to do here, along with Friends of the Earth, others in opposition and the Chair of the committee, who is a member of the Minister of State’s party, is precisely to change the mandate of GNI to ensure the only aim is not being economical and efficient but to act in line with our climate obligations. Recent research by UCC found that in order to meet our carbon budgets, gas demand in 2040 must be reduced in 93% in the power sector, 85% in the residential sector and 67% in enterprise. It is about the gas being used, the generation of carbon dioxide in the here and now, but it is also locking people in. Every new connection is locking people into fossil fuel use, potentially for decades, so this is vital.
I will attempt to pre-empt some of the Minister of State’s responses. I understand why my amendments are all grouped. Because they are, this is the meat of the whole debate. We have an hour and a half for the debate, but this is it right here. We will get one go, the Minister of State will respond and then we will only get three minutes to come back in. This is presumably when the Minister of State will tell us that he is sorry but he cannot do it for this reason or that. I suspect the main reason he will give is that this is purely technical Bill by means of which we are cleaning things up with GNI and so this is not the place to be doing this. I do not understand that. We are now making amendments to the Gas Acts, so now is the perfect opportunity to direct that GNI should operate in line with our climate targets. It should not be obliged to connect anyone who wants to connect to the grid, it should not be driven just by economic concerns, but by the agreed and legally binding climate action plan, which obviously includes substantial reductions.
Last November, the Minister, Deputy Ryan, in the context of GNI, told the climate action committee:
The future will not be providing fossil gas to an ever expanding network of customers or users ... There is no big future expansion in gas use there. Anyway, the businesses cannot and will not.
As Friends of the Earth has pointed out, the issue is that GNI's current legal functions are entirely premised on such network expansion and increasing gas use. The Minister, Deputy Ryan, and the Minister of State, Deputy Smyth, can have the best intentions in the world and the best ideas about what we need to be doing but if they set GNI up in a certain way and then do not amend the basis upon which it is set up to say it has to be in line with the climate action plan, then we are just letting it continue, with inertia, to do what it does. There will be requests for connections and GNI will say, "Yes, come and connect to the grid", and we will be locking in more and more fossil fuel usage. It is essential we have State-owned enterprises contributing to the energy transition instead of acting against it. That means ensuring a decline, not an increase, in Ireland's dependence on fossil fuels.
I really hope the Minister of State is going to say "Yes" and that he will take the opportunity to do it, but obviously I fear that is not going to be the case. If that was going to be the case, he would have tabled his own amendments.
