Minister for Environment Phil Hogan has confirmed a radical shift in the Irish Government’s climate change policy.
Releasing the promised review of National Climate Policy on 3rd November Mr Hogan said “My objective, in line with the Programme for Government, is to introduce climate legislation”.
However, he said: “the right policy must be in place before legislation can be introduced.
“Environmental protection and a competitive economy are complementary and my priority is to make sure we have the appropriate policy in place in order to make a successful transition to a low-carbon future; legislation should underpin policy.”
He said the next phase of policy development would “be critical from both an environmental and economic perspective. He said a three pronged approach would be taken “in order to develop the necessary policy mix to support an ambitious but realistic national mitigation agenda”.
To this end an independent study is to be carried out by the secretariat to the National Economic and Social Council; a public consultation, is to be initiated in 2012; and carbon emissions mitigation progress will “be pursued through the Cabinet, Committee on Climate Change and the Green Economy”.
After weeks of speculation, the news that Hogan has no intention of introducing legislation to set out Ireland’s stall on how we are going to tackle the fundamental challenge of climate change has been met with huge disappointment and criticism in environment circles. This is despite a firm commitment in the Fine Gael-Labour programme for government to “publish a Climate Change Bill which will provide certainty surrounding Government policy and provide a clear pathway for emissions reductions, in line with negotiated EU 2020 targets”.
The policy shift was immediately criticised by Green Party leader Eamon Ryan who said Mr Hogan was “launching a review of a review”.
Mr Ryan said the Government was placing climate change strategies in competition with economic policy and was in serious error. He said such a move, which could delay the introduction of binding emissions reductions targets, was a review of a review and “Yes Minister speak for doing nothing”.
Mr Ryan said Mr Hogan had clearly taken the view that achieving carbon targets was in competition with the imperative for economic recovery. Apart from the “moral bankruptcy” of doing nothing to advance climate change targets, he said Mr Hogan had erroneously set climate change strategies in competition with economic policy.
Oisín Coghlan of Friends of the Earth said it was a “spectacular U-turn” from Mr Hogan’s previously stated positions in favour of legislation. He said it also put him at odds with Government policy as restated by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore just two weeks ago when he said the Government would “deliver on climate change legislation in 2012”.
