The Stop Climate Chaos Coalition and the Environmental Pillar have carried out a detailed assessment of the Government’s Climate Action Plan and have launched a 20-page “end-of-term” Report on the Government: Will the new Climate Action Plan deliver the revolution the Minister promised?
Link to Report: https://tinyurl.com/y58a9jzk
Media Release
New Climate Action Plan will not bring about promised climate revolution, says environmental coalitions
Governance proposals welcome, but Government must now deliver
Credibility of Plan undermined by Government commitment to oil and gas exploration
An analysis from two environmental coalition groups has found that the Government’s recently published climate action plan will not deliver the revolution in how we live as promised by Minister Bruton.
The analysis – The new Climate Action Plan: Will it lead to a revolution in how we live? – published today (July 9th) by the Stop Climate Chaos and Environmental Pillar found that although the Plan offers promising governance proposals for the delivery and oversight of climate measures going forward, a key test will be how fast these proposals will be put in place by the Government.
Catherine Devitt, Head of Policy with Stop Climate Chaos, said,
“The proposals for changing how we plan for, monitor and deliver climate action measures are very positive.
An important test now for how committed the Government is to this Plan will be how quickly these governance reforms are put into law.”
“Ireland will need to immediately ratchet up ambition if we are to align our policy with what we’ve signed up to under the Paris Agreement. The Climate Action Plan doesn’t go far enough in cutting dangerous emissions over the decade ahead.”
The analysis found that the Plan does not commit to the necessary significant reductions over the next decade required to align Ireland with its international obligations. The Plan proposes to reduce emissions by 2% a year from now to 2030 and 7% or more a year thereafter.
Ms. Devitt added,
“Delaying the move to a low carbon economy will make it costlier to Ireland in the long-term. It also means that we’re missing out on all the social, economic and public health co-benefits of this transition.”
The Plan also weakens and in some cases, fails to adopt the full package of recommendations from climate action from the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action in their landmark cross-party report in March 2019.
Commenting on this, Karen Ciesielski, coordinator of the Environmental Pillar said,
“Failure to adopt in full the common sense recommendations of the Joint Committee is a missed opportunity for the Government to respond to the unprecedented public concern about climate change and the political impetus that now exists for action.”
Building these measures into the Plan would have been a significant departure for Irish climate policy, and would have helped put us on track to deliver on the promised revolution in how we live”
Both coalitions have called on the Government to implement the governance recommendations without delay and to commit to strengthening climate action in line with the recommendations of the Joint Committee. They concluded however, by emphasising that Government action on climate change has been seriously undermined by last week’s decision to kill the Climate Emergency Measures Bill. The Bill sought to prohibit the issuing of licenses for oil and gas exploration off the Irish coast, with environmental groups consistently arguing that the Bill was essential to Ireland’s shift to a low carbon economy.
Ends
For more information or to arrange interviews, contact Ms. Catherine Devitt, Policy Coordinator, Stop Climate Chaos Coalition: catherine@stopclimatechaos.ie , Phone: 0860439696
Notes
- The Stop Climate Chaos / Environmental Pillar report will be online here at 1pm. (https://www.stopclimatechaos.ie/news/2019/07/09/climate-campaigners-to-release-end-of-term-report/)
- Stop Climate Chaos is the civil society coalition campaigning for Ireland to do its fair share to tackle climate change. The Coalition’s 33 members include overseas aid and development, environmental, youth and faith-based organisations.
- https://environmentalpillar.ie
