Even a watered-down Bill is proving too much for determined and powerful lobby groups, writes FRANK McDONALD
THE BIG guns are being trained on efforts by Minister of State Ciarán Cuffe to steer the Government’s Climate Change Response Bill through the Oireachtas before the coming general election – principally by making claims that it would put Ireland at a competitive disadvantage.
Yesterday, Food and Drink Industry Ireland (FDII) – a division of business lobby Ibec – became the latest to enter the fray, warning that the “poorly thought-out legislation” risks “derailing” a strong export performance by the food and beverage sector last year.
Echoing an Ibec statement last week, FDII claimed that targets to cut Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions set out in the Bill “are significantly above those of other EU countries and will require extreme measures to meet, such as huge cuts in the size of our beef and dairy herds”.
Ibec director-general Danny McCoy warned that by increasing energy prices, the Bill would “drive manufacturing jobs out of Ireland. It will also hike up the price that households must pay for basic goods and services, such as heat, electricity, travel, food and drink.” Both Ibec and the Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) are lobbying TDs and Senators to have the legislation deferred to allow for a “proper debate”.
The programme for government agreed by the two parties (and the PDs) in July 2007 did not specifically pledge climate change legislation, but it did “set a target for this administration of a reduction of 3 per cent per year on average in our greenhouse gas emissions”. In their October 2009 renewed programme, Fianna Fáil and the Greens reaffirmed this target and pledged that it would be enshrined in a Climate Change Bill that would also provide “a statutory basis for the annual carbon budget”, setting out total emissions year by year.
As Friends of the Earth has complained, in its detailed analysis of the proposals, Cuffe’s proposed legislation “only promises reductions of 2.5 per cent a year” – the hallmark, it said, of “bureaucratic haggling” that had “seen it diluted on behalf of vested interests”.
The same could be said of the absence of any requirements for an annual carbon budget or the setting of five-year emissions reduction targets – on the lines of Britain’s 2008 Climate Change Act – or even the publication of annual reports by an expert advisory body.
Contrary to what the IFA has claimed, farmers are not singled out for savage treatment; indeed, the draft Bill produced last October by the Oireachtas Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security – with cross-party support – proposed stricter targets for agriculture.
Introducing his Bill in the Seanad, Cuffe described it as “flexible and pragmatic”. He even held out an olive branch to the agri-food sector by saying the legislation “can be amended at any time to allow for changing circumstances”.
Cuffe also noted the targets specified in the Bill “allow for the inclusion of carbon sinks, which will be a major advantage to agriculture and forestry”. Thus, the actual reduction in emissions would be lower, as they could be offset by trees or even grassland.
He reiterated that the target cut in emissions by 2020 “is not tougher than our existing EU obligations and national commitments”. Indeed, if the EU was to revise its overall target to minus 30 per cent, the provisions in the Bill would have to be strengthened considerably.
Green Party Ministers had said that Ireland’s climate legislation would be modelled on the British Climate Change Act. But under that Act, the British government is obliged to introduce not one, but three, five-year carbon budgets at a time – the first of which is legally binding.
There is no similar provision in the proposed legislation here, which means it’s weaker, not stronger. And unlike Britain’s Climate Change Committee, Ireland’s Expert Advisory Panel will only be permitted to publish its advice with the Government’s prior approval.
It is hard to escape the conclusion, however, that the priority being given to enacting even this watered-down Bill is intended by its Green Party sponsors to show they haven’t been burned by their “deal with the devil”, as Ciarán Cuffe famously characterised it in 2007.