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Climate Action Plan

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 February 2022

Thursday, 24 February 2022

Ceisteanna (79)

Darren O'Rourke

Ceist:

79. Deputy Darren O'Rourke asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications his views on the recent comments by the Director General of the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, that greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to fall here in 2022; if he has plans to strengthen the climate action remit of the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, to prioritise the achievement of Ireland’s 2030 and 2050 emission reduction targets; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10693/22]

Amharc ar fhreagra

Freagraí ó Béal (9 píosaí cainte)

I ask the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications his views on the recent comments by the director general of the EPA that greenhouse gas emissions are unlikely to fall here in 2022. Has the Minister plans to strengthen the climate action remit of the CRU to prioritise the achievement of Ireland’s 2030 and 2050 emission reduction targets? Will he make a statement on the matter?

I am happy to make that statement. In 2021, we saw a step-change in our approach to climate action, with the signing into law of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and the publication of the national development plan, NDP, and the Climate Action Plan 2021. The significantly strengthened legally binding framework established under the climate Act with clear targets and commitments set in law will help ensure Ireland achieves its national, EU and international climate goals and obligations in the near and long term. This includes our commitment to halving greenhouse emissions by 2030 relative to 2018 levels. Achieving these goals will require changes across all sectors of our society and economy. It will involve collaborative effort by Government, business, communities, and individuals to implement new and ambitious policies. The statutory framework laid out in the climate Act ensures delivery of successive climate action plans, national long-term climate action strategies, and national adaptation frameworks, supported by a system of carbon budgeting and sectoral targets with appropriate oversight by Government, the Oireachtas and the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC.

The CRU is a key stakeholder in a number of actions and measures identified in the climate action plan and the supplementary annex of actions published late last year. The commission's role in the protection of the environment, the promotion of renewable, alternative and sustainable energy use, the encouragement of the efficient use and production of electricity and supporting research and development for the generation of renewable and sustainable forms of energy and increasing the efficient use and production of electricity demonstrates its existing key role in supporting Ireland in reaching its climate objectives and emissions reduction targets.

It is a real challenge. What the head of the EPA indicated last week is indeed very possible. We see a particular problem with increasing emissions from Moneypoint power station and the return to pre-Covid traffic levels. These are the big challenges that are the cause of rising emissions but I am confident we can, and will, turn that around. Our plans that are in place will see emissions start to fall. It will take time but we are taking the right approach.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. As he knows, the director general of the EPA said it is hard to see how emissions will fall this year. I think a former head of the CCAC said they will likely increase. This is at a time we are in the second year of a carbon budget where we are supposed to see a 4.8% annual average reduction. I do not take any satisfaction from saying this but there is a real possibility that, as a Green Party Minister with responsibility for the environment, Deputy Ryan will preside over our missing every emissions reduction target in his tenure. The approach taken by Government is incremental. It is based on carbon tax which, regardless of one's position on it, is in itself incremental. Does he see an alternative, better way to finance this transition that reflects the urgency that is needed?

Finance is not the key obstacle. It is one of the elements we need to have in place but it is not the biggest constraint. The biggest constraint is that we all - public and Government - must engage in a form of system change that takes time, especially with transport, agriculture and energy. With energy, there is probably a clearer, more certain path. All the finance in energy is going to go in this clean direction towards retrofitting, renewables and hyper-efficiency in what we do. We are on the path there. It will take us time to switch off Moneypoint but we will do that. Transport and agriculture are more difficult. Financing is indeed one part but the biggest issue is probably political commitment at local and national levels. We have that political commitment in this House and it then comes down to the decisions themselves. It comes down to each decision on the allocation of space as much as the allocation of finance, to take that example. That is going to be the key metric.

I do not agree. I refer again to the level of funding committed to this. We differ on the carbon tax but it will at best raise €9.5 billion, though I question that figure. That figure is a drop in the ocean in respect of what is needed to deliver the type of urgent systemic change the Minister is talking about. People do not see the impact on public transport, for example. They do not see it with renewables. We are not there and the window of opportunity is closing. This transition might happen, and I expect it will, but at this rate it will not happen in time. That is where I see the real issue with delivering that institutional change. For the State to lead on this requires a level of resources beyond anything that has been committed at either an Irish or European level. There must be a step-change.

The question I come back with is: where are those resources going to come from?

You are the Minister.

Yes, and my answer to that is much of the private finance is already going in this direction. What I say to the food industry and the farmers behind it is if they think that industry is going to be able to survive in this decade if it does not start addressing the ecological crisis we are in then they are badly mistaken because that funding will disappear. It is the same for forestry. We can, and will, examine new funding mechanisms to pay for nature-based solutions. However, I return to the key point, namely, that funding is available. Are we in this House, and local authorities across the country, willing to make the scale of leap we must make? I think we are and the people are. It will take time. There may indeed be periods when reductions are not seen. It is not going to be exact in each year. It is not a straight line. However, I am absolutely convinced we can, and will, make that turn. It will require absolute political courage in the decisions we must make, and there is no shortage of that on this side, as well as the funding to back it up.

Deputy Grealish is taking No. 80.

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