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Minister Eamon Ryan publishing the draft of the Bill last year. Julien Behal/RollingNews.ie

Carbon neutral by 2050: President Higgins signs Climate Action Bill into law

“Today is a landmark day,” said Green Party leader Eamon Ryan.

PRESIDENT MICHAEL D HIGGINS has signed a new bill into law that makes Ireland’s green targets legally binding.

The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021 was brought forward to the Dáil by Minister for the Environment and Climate and Green Party leader Eamon Ryan. 

It was passed in both the Dáil and the Seanad and has now been signed into law by the president.

Minister Ryan said it was a “landmark day” in Ireland’s journey to net zero emissions.

“The extreme weather events around the world over the past month have shown us all that we must act quickly, to protect ourselves and our planet,” he said.

“Our immediate target of halving emissions by 2030 is challenging, but it is also an opportunity to transform our economy, create new jobs, protect our environment and build a greener and fairer future.”

The Climate Action Bill commits to Ireland becoming carbon neutral by 2050 and contains provisions for legally binding emissions targets through the introduction of five-year ‘carbon budgets’, proposed by the Climate Change Advisory Council.

It also commits to an ambitous 51% reduction in 2018-level carbon emissions by 2030, plans for which will be set out in the first two of these budgets.

But the Bill has come in for criticism from opposition TDs and campaigners, particularly after a number of “last minute” amendments were passed in the Seanad on 9 July.

The ammendments revised how greenhouse gas emissions are calculated for different sectors, particularly around land use for agriculture, while also impacting the independent body charged with devising Ireland’s future ‘carbon budgets’.

One amendment will now see the Government take responsibility for determining how emissions are calculated for each sector, and what each will contribute over a five-year period.

The Climate Change Advisory Council will also now be required to comply with these  government regulations when carrying out its functions. 

Speaking in the Dáil at the time, Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said that “after spending weeks and months, hundreds of hours of work, listening to advice, listening to the experts and trying to work as collaboratively as possible, to see these amendments come in at the last minute with no real notice was incredibly disappointing”.

“It is a very important bill and we all wanted to work with the minister to make it stronger and to future-proof it to make it a bill for future generations and governments. Unfortunately, these amendments have undermined that completely,” she added.

Climatologist Professor John Sweeney also criticised the amendments at the time, telling Green News that they had “taken the guts out of the Climate Bill and destroyed the principles under which it was established.”

The Bill also states that Government ministers will be responsible for achieving the legally-binding targets for their own sector, actions for which will be updated annually in a Climate Action Plan. 

Local Authorities will have to prepare individual Climate Action Plans, which will include both mitigation and adaptation measures and will be updated every five years.

The Climate Action Plan 2021 will be published in full in early autumn.

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    Mute Craig Clancy
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:18 PM

    They haven’t paved the way with any incentives to be carbon neutral in 100 years time never mind 2050..no planning, no decent ideas just going with the flow and tax tax tax hoping it will work.

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    Mute Geoff Bateman
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:34 PM

    @Craig Clancy: correct

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    Mute Quoka
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:44 PM

    @Craig Clancy: Exactly. Policies like this are all fart and no poo. The threshold temperature rise for continued planetary warming has been passed irreversibly by many accounts. We didn’t heed the warnings decades ago. The damage has for the most part been done there’s just a lag in consequences. Moreover we literally have exactly zero idea how to stop it, let alone reverse it. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try but we literally have no idea how to maintain our present lifestyle and halt what’s coming.

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    Mute John Mulligan
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:26 PM

    @Craig Clancy: 6,000 forestry licenses held up by a bungling bureaucracy. So many obstacles now to planting trees that new planting is running at a tiny fraction of target.
    If we can’t do the simple things, and if a random crank can stop farmers planting trees, how will we manage the big stuff?

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    Mute Kipper O Keeffe
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:22 PM

    All this is another way to tax people

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    Mute The Bolt
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:14 PM

    That man would give an Anadin a headache

    293
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    Mute Derek Baldy Head Baldrick
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:17 PM

    @The Bolt: I’d imagine some of the electorate are clamoring for the next election when as far as they’re concerned it might be time to see who’s who. I’m sure the opposition will increase the pressure and that there will no doubt me some crass comments getting bandied about :)

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    Mute Dave Byrne
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:49 PM

    Could the Journal do a story on why sleepy needs so many advisors 8 I believe.

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    Mute Derek Lyster
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:05 PM

    @Dave Byrne: because he hasn’t a scooby doo about what he is supposed to be doing?

    123
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    Mute John Mc Donagh
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:34 PM

    It can be done! Everybody has just to stop everything—That includes eating, drinking and traveling.

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    Mute ed w
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:14 PM

    landmark day for greens concreteing the countryside

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    Mute Donal Desmond
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:16 PM

    @ed w: Landmark day for tax increases on behalf of the baby Blueshirts..The Greens.

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    Mute Dave Barrett
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:50 PM

    @ed w: All beef to be done away with and replaced with beef tasting veggie burgers. People’s diet to be modified so as to cut down on poo and farting.

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    Mute inflation is coming... buy physical silver.
    Favourite inflation is coming... buy physical silver.
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:12 PM

    A great day for central bankers and corporations as the so called president of people gives the green light for further deficit spending for years to come. Welcome to the debt slave society all.

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    Mute Tim
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:16 PM

    Do you still have the big diesel car Eamon?

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    Mute Ciaran O 'Reilly
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:19 PM

    Someone needs to reinvent the airplane so.

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    Mute eoin carroll
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:36 PM

    What does this mean? Will Eamon Ryan be arrested if this target isn’t met?

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    Mute DB
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:51 PM

    Good auld Eamonn let’s tax the living day lights out of everyone to give him a hard on to be carbon neutral .

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    Mute Padraic McDonagh
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 5:57 PM

    It’s disappointing that Micky D will sign any auld shi’ite that comes his way. He was a public servant with principles, only to retire as a yes man.

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    Mute Eugene Canning
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:33 PM

    All the houses he’s going to build after his official retirement will be carbon neutral!

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    Mute Damian Moylan
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 6:22 PM

    Why in this rush to push people to buy new cars is there no account taken at all in how much co2 it costs to actually make a car (of whatever variety) and it is significant. The actual total co2 would be the manufacturing co2 in tonnes divided by the car life span plus whatever comes out the back but this is not considered.

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    Mute Ilarion Cibu
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    Jul 24th 2021, 12:21 AM

    @Damian Moylan: what is also completely disregarded is battery utilisation which causes Humongous pollution in to the atmosphere because there is no technology to utilize Lithium-ion batteries that EV are driven , you know how they are being utilised? BURNT DOWN – thats how. And the battery life is 200-300k km. And when theres going to be enough EV’S its going to be a natural disaster when theres millions of batteries to be burnt.

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    Mute Gerard Heery
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 7:27 PM

    Taxed into the grave ye will go ,meanwhile I wonder how all the six litre SUVs are doing in the oil rich counties

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    Mute john smith iv
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:42 PM

    Need to stop the cows farting.

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    Mute Aido
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:54 PM

    @john smith iv: seaweed

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    Mute brendan o connell
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 11:29 PM

    China puts out more emissions in an hour than Ireland puts out in a year, not to mention the US with their 8 mile per gallon cars , India, Pakistan, Russia south America Africa etc , tis laughable indeed, we don’t amount to a hill of beens but we will suffer as those mentioned have no possibility of conformity .

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    Mute trebloc01
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 6:04 PM

    The biggest producer are the Greens.

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    Mute Gary Kearney
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    Jul 24th 2021, 3:37 PM

    @trebloc01: They do produce a lot of hot air that is true.

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    Mute Geoff Bateman
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 3:34 PM

    and if we dont?

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    Mute Dónal Ó Keeffe
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    Jul 24th 2021, 10:39 AM

    Have all these proposals been proofed against those on the average industrial wage. Impractical proposals and taxes disguised as green initiatives will do nothing to effect climate change. Global agreements are the only solution. USA/China/india/russia account for 55% of global fossil fuel emissions alone. Unless these 4 have similar proposals then all the rest of the world can only achieve less than half of what is required. Green party needs to live in the realworld and align themselves with greenpeace etc. to make themselves credible, and force real change not just contracts for their supporters.

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    Mute Mairtin Thornton
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:52 PM

    Maybe cut down on the planning permission for Data centres!!!

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    Mute Mairtin Thornton
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    Jul 23rd 2021, 4:59 PM

    Maybe focus on reducing planning permission for data centres

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