Cabinet approves 30-year programme for cutting carbon emissions to zero

THE Climate Action Bill will commit the current Coalition and future governments to dramatically reducing the emission of carbon and other greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

Cabinet approved the bill yesterday and Climate Action Minister Eamon Ryan has set the ambitious target of having it passed by the Oireachtas and signed into law in December.

That would allow the process of apportioning responsibilities to the various government departments and ministers required to take action to get under way in the new year.

The overriding aim of the bill is to get Ireland to a position of net zero emissions by 2050.

Emissions would be cut to a minimum and any that still occur removed from the atmosphere by new technologies or natural methods such as increased forestry. Reductions would be phased by means of a series of five-year “carbon budgets” or emission ceilings, with annual plans implemented and reviewed during each period.

The Coalition has already pledged to cut emissions by 7pc a year on average up to 2030, a cumulative reduction of 51pc, but the new law would require planning for sustained action over 30 years.

Its publication comes as the European Parliament prepares to vote on its climate law to make Europe carbon neutral by 2050 and, in the interim, increase the EU’s collective 2030 emissions reduction target from 40pc to at least 55pc.

The parliament’s environment committee voted last month to push for a 60pc reduction – still shy of the 65pc scientists say is needed – but the largest political grouping, the European People’s Party, to which the Fine Gael MEPs are aligned, oppose reductions of that scale.

Debating the law yesterday, European People’s Party MEPs insisted emissions must be reduced in a “sensible” way that did not cost citizens too much, did not cause job losses and did not result in “carbon leakage” – the relocation of carbon-intensive industries to less restrictive regions.

Frans Timmermans, European Commission vice-president in charge of overseeing the European Green Deal, hit back. He said communities devastated by Storm Alex over the weekend did not want to hear excuses about how much climate action costs when they were living with the consequences of non-action.

“This is going to be hard to do and we will ask sacrifices of everyone,” he said. “It’s a tough job but it can be done and the sooner we start, the lower the cost; the sooner we start, the earlier the benefits.”