Ireland's 2020 Climate Bill
The draft Irish ‘Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill 2020’ (CA Bill) published on the 7th of October is a great step forward, wait, actually… no its not.
That statement would ring true if I were writing this 10 years ago, while we could still make the gradual emissions cuts sought in current government plans.
The CA Bill, albeit put forward with good intentions from government especially those in the Green Party who have fought to implement stronger climate action for years, fails dramatically to address the climate emergency we’re in.
It must be noted before we dive in that TD’s from both the current government parties and opposition parties have shown a clear appetite for improving the CA Bill and that this is a draft not the finished bill.
Without being too blunt; The target is 20 years off, there are few visible enforcement mechanisms, the language is vague allowing for loopholes and there is no real commitment to actually reduce our emissions.
The focus is instead on removing emissions through natural (forests, bogs etc) and technological (Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage) means in order to balance our emissions - how much goes in and out.
Relying on our natural means to sequester carbon can provide great opportunity to improve biodiversity in the process. However as reported by GreenNews, Ireland’s forestry sector has become a source of carbon rather than a sink.
Relying on technological means is extremely wishful thinking as carbon capture, and storage tech is a long way away from commercial viability at the scale necessary.
If we’re to meet the 1.5C target and take into account climate justice and equity (the amount of emissions Ireland has historically accounted for, the wealth of our nation and our responsibility to other nations) then our net zero emissions target according to leading Irish Scholars, in both UCC and DCU, should be between 2025 and 2035 at the very latest.
The CA Bill put forward by the current government, and the Climate Action Plan (CA Plan) produced last year, both have a 2050 net zero target. I say ‘targets’ quite lightly as there are no guarantees these will actually be achieved if this bill is followed.
A 2050 target may seem like a step forward as some target is better than none. But the pace of change outlined, among many other issues will lead to a huge overshoot of our prior climate commitments.
The Paris Agreement (PA) which Ireland signed in 2016, sets out a target of keeping global temperatures to ‘well below 2C’ while ‘pursuing’ efforts to hold temperature increases to below 1.5C.
The term ‘pursuing’ within the PA has been a hot topic since the agreements inception. It essentially leaves room for policy makers to not reach the 1.5C target. Now, to combat this wording in the original draft of the Irish Climate Bill 2020 the phrase to ‘pursue and achieve’ was used instead of vague ‘pursue’.
However, the words ‘and achieve’ have been removed in the most recent draft that was brought forward by the government. So it seems the government might be looking for some wiggle room in the future, maybe for the future lawsuits that are headed their way like Friends Of The Irish Environment and their now famous ‘Climate Case Ireland’.
My hope is that the final draft put forward by the Government will have reinserted ‘and achieve’ to clarify our commitment to reaching net zero.
Why do we need our government to target emissions reductions in line with 1.5C instead of 2C?
The difference between 1.5C and 2C may not seem like much, but the variables that come into play when temperatures globally change by 0.5 of a degree are monumental.
A key reason we need to stay below 1.5C instead of 2C, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and many others, is irreversible, unpredictable tipping points and our limited knowledge on them.
It’s difficult to know when tipping points will actually be reached, what repercussions they’ll have on other systems and the potential for negative feedback loops is high.
This means that the sooner we act to keep warming below certain thresholds – 1.5C – the better chance we have of avoiding the catastrophic tipping points that await at the higher temperatures.
But all is not lost. 1.5C and our commitments to climate justice within the Paris Agreement are still in reach. The CA Plan is built on some genuinely great work from experts, the citizens assembly on climate change and the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change.
The plan has detailed how Ireland can become a leader in climate action and how we can journey to a sustainable society. The CA Bill makes further advancements with carbon budgets for departments, although there are no clear punishments for non-adherence to these budgets.
The CA Bill and CA Plan will be intrinsically interlinked with one supporting the other, therefore both require the adoption of new targets for reaching net zero emissions by 2035.
We have the means to produce the climate action necessary in the CA Plan, now all we need is the political will to enhance and dramatically strengthen our national commitments. This is where we come into it. This comes from all of us (yes you) talking to friends and family, and from pressuring your local councillor and TD to greatly increase Ireland’s climate action.
The system change we need is in sight, the ideas, the technology and the means to implement it are in reach, now all we need to do is act and act fast.
As President Higgins noted last week, while giving an address at the Engineers Ireland annual conference, we need ‘a radical paradigm shift’ where we live within our planetary boundaries.
He also encouragingly made frequent reference to the brilliant work done by Kate Raworth on Doughnut Economics; a visual framework for sustainable development, combining the concept of planetary boundaries with the complementary concept of social boundaries.
This paradigm shift is in sight, but the CA Bill 2020 will not bring about that shift unless important changes are made – most importantly – the addition of ambition.