Following Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan’s announcement that climate change legislation will be delayed while he carries out a study and consultation on policy measures, Friends of the Earth has launched an email campaign to the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change.
You can take part in this campaign by going to http://www.foe.ie/takeaction/email-the-cabinet-committee-on-climate-change-asking-them-when-the-climate-law-will-be-published/. It’s easy! And takes less than a minute to do!
It’s important that we let the committee know exactly how disappointed we feel about the delay. When will the Irish government ever wake up to the urgency of curbing our carbon emissions?
With just weeks to go before Minister Hogan represents Ireland at the UN climate talks in Durban we need the Cabinet Committee to meet to agree and announce that a draft climate Bill will be published early next year, as previously indicated.
Take the email action now! It WILL make a difference!
The text of the email action is as follows:
Dear ,
I’m writing to you, as a member of the Cabinet Committee on Climate Change.
Minister Hogan has caused considerable confusion and uncertainty with his suggestion that work on climate change legislation will be delayed by at least a year while he carries out a study and consultation process on policy measures.
The uncertainty is heightened by the fact that the Cabinet Committee didn’t meet as scheduled to consider the climate review that the Minister has now published.
Minister Hogan’s comments on the launch of the review seem to contradict the welcome statement from the Tanaiste just two weeks ago confirming that the government’s aim “is to deliver on climate change legislation in 2012”.
The comments also seem to confuse two different things. Consultation on the development of emission reduction policies and measures, on the one hand. Essentially the preparation of a new a national climate change strategy. And the establishment of a statutory framework for carbon budgeting and parliamentary accountability on the other.
The Minister is suggesting the second shouldn’t be done until the first is completed. If anything, legislation which “underpins” policy, to use the Minister’s own word, should come first. A robust climate law provides the ideal framework within which policy development and consultation can take place.
We know what our EU target for 2020 is. The only reason not to put it into domestic law now is if we hope to somehow wriggle out of it. We know that the systems of co-ordination and accountability in place over the last 15 years failed to deliver our Kyoto target. The only reason not to reform these systems now is if we want to repeat that failure.
At the very least, policy development and legislation can happen in tandem.
So, I write now to ask you to convene a meeting of the Cabinet Committee as soon as possible to agree and announce a Government timeline for the legislative process in parallel with the policy development process outlined by Minister Hogan.
Minister Hogan himself said “it would be relatively easy to proceed to drafting legislation”. In order therefore “to deliver on climate change legislation in 2012” that timeline should include publishing a draft Bill in the first quarter of next year, which the Oireachtas Committee can then work on. A full Bill should then be approved by Cabinet and published by the end of the summer, and passed by the end of 2012.
I look forward to your response to this email.
