Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 15 October 2019
531. Deputy Niamh Smyth asked the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the details of the introduction of amending legislation in 2019 to provide for a 2050 mitigation objective, carbon budgeting and improved accountability arrangements, including net zero target; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42268/19]
View answerOn 17 June 2019, the Government published the Climate Action Plan 2019, which commits, inter alia, to bringing forward a new Climate Action (Amendment) Bill. The objective of the Bill is to significantly strengthen the statutory framework for governance of the climate challenge, and ensure delivery of successive Climate Action Plans and Long-term Climate Strategies, supported by a system of carbon budgeting and sectoral targets with appropriate oversight by Government, the Oireachtas and a new Climate Action Council.
The Climate Action Plan identifies clearly a number of provisions to be incorporated in the new Bill. These include:
- Establishing the 2050 target in law
- Making the adoption of carbon budgets a legal requirement
- Requiring the Government to set a decarbonisation target range for each sector, with the Minister with primary responsibility for each sector identified being accountable for delivering the relevant actions to meet the sectoral target and report annually on the delivery of their actions and achieving sectoral emission targets
- Establishing the Climate Action Council as a successor organisation to the Climate Change Advisory Council with a revised remit
- Establishing that the Climate Action Plan shall be updated annually
- Establishing that a Long-Term Climate Strategy, to match the period covered by the three five year carbon budgets, shall be published
- Ensuring that the proposed governance arrangements retain sufficient flexibility to allow necessary reorientation of policy in the light of changing technologies, circumstances, challenges and opportunities over the period to 2030 and beyond.
The General Scheme is currently being prepared taking account of these new provisions.
As committed under the Plan, I intend to publish the Climate Action (Amendment) Bill in quarter 1, 2020.
