Government using ‘political capital’ to avoid climate change pledge

The Government has been accused of wanting “to turn this green country brown” and of using all its political capital in Europe to “get Ireland off the hook” of meeting its climate change commitments.

In an angry outburst during Leaders' Questions, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said Ireland had the third highest per capita emissions in Europe and was also only one of two countries in the EU which was not going to meet the international commitments it made to cut emissions by 2020.

His comments follow the announcement by the European Commission on Wednesday of detailed calculations for specific emissions targets for member states, in which Ireland received significant concessions.

He asked Tánaiste Frances Fitzgerald: "Why is it that Government has spent all of its political capital to define Ireland as a country that wants to fiddle while the rest of the world burns?"

Transport emissions are now expected to grow by 16 per cent by 2020 and agricultural emissions by 7 per cent, he said.

Ireland’s commitment for 2020 was 20 per cent and 20.4 per cent by 2030, half of what other EU countries committed to.

Mr Ryan claimed the only political response from the Government was “to use all the political capital we achieved over the last five years in Europe to try and achieve one thing which they achieved yesterday, which was to get Ireland off the hook” from having to take further action.

But Ms Fitzgerald insisted Ireland was committed to transferring to a competitive low-carbon, climate friendly, environmentally sustainable economy.

She said Ireland negotiated on the basis of its particular difficulties and on the basis of scientific evidence.

Minister for Energy Denis Naughten, whom Ms Fitzgerald asked to respond further, said the 2030 targets were "realistic and achievable" and based on detailed evidence that was submitted.

Mr Naughten said to Mr Ryan that a lot of work had been done by UCC.

“The difficulty was in relation to the 2020 targets as was openly admitted by the Commission that the evidence was not as forthcoming as it was in relation to our 2030 targets,” he said.

He reminded Mr Ryan that it was he had negotiated the 2020 targets.

Mr Naughten said that “baselines and targets that were used left us in a position that was always going to be unachievable to reach and what we now have are targets that are achievable and can be reached”.