Ministers are playing lip service to Climate Change.
Labour spokesperson on Climate Action, Sean Sherlock TD is responding to the Annual Transition Statements in the Dáil. Deputy Sherlock raised the lack of urgency that seems to be the hallmark of this government’s approach to Greenhouse Gas Emissions.
Speaking in the Dáil Deputy Sherlock said;
“The annual transition statement is disconcerting in how it depicts a lot of positive action without stating clearly how far this country is of course in tackling climate change. We are going in the wrong direction in terms of our climate pollution: emissions are rising rather than falling.
“This is contrary to all targets, legal obligations, and political commitments. Under the FCCC Ireland agreed to cut emissions by 5%pa from 2018 until 2050. Ireland is just one of 2 European member states that are not going to meet these commitments.”
“The policies listed in the transition statement simply don’t go far enough to turn this trajectory around. According to SEAI[i] “non-ETS emissions are anticipated to be between 0% and 1% below 2005 levels by 2020 compared to the target of 20% below”.
“The annual transition statement should state this clearly and use it as an opportunity to galvanise action, rather than masking inaction. Nobody is denying that we do not have adequate policies in place to tackle the trajectory of rising emissions. What we need now is to urgently develop pathways to deliver the deep transformation of energy supply, housing, transport, agriculture and management of our natural environment. We cannot waste more time re-hashing old policies with unknown emissions reductions.
“We must work toward developing a collection of emissions reductions policies across all sectors that are designed to actually deliver positive, radical and properly planned climate action.
[i] National Energy Projections to 2030’ published by SEAI October 2018