Madam, – A recent briefing given by officials in the Department of Finance (published on their website on April 7th) to incoming Ministers paints a disturbing picture of how entrenched and misguided attitudes continue to inform policy formulation at the highest levels with reference to Ireland’s climate change obligations.
Advice to the Minister that “the policy agenda on climate change has been driven recently more by ideology and target-setting rather than being informed by a rational assessment of what is possible and what is in Ireland’s interest, given the costs and benefits involved” is particularly perplexing.
For public servants to describe the legislative proposals of an elected government in this manner would appear to exceed their contractual remit as implementers rather than fashioners of public policy. One hopes the Minister reminds his officials that judgment on what is or is not a “rational assessment” or what a “costed menu of alternative sensible climate change policies” involves, is the preserve of elected representatives.
The current Government, like its predecessor, has been elected with a mandate to pass meaningful climate change legislation and should not be briefed by public servants that the electorate’s wishes represent an irrational, ideologically-driven, policy agenda.
It is particularly disappointing to see the Department of Finance recycling the misinformed propaganda to the effect that the abortive Climate Change Response Bill specified emission reduction targets that were in excess of required EU targets.
Despite the variations in baseline dates and considerations of sinks, etc, implicit in the Bill, elementary calculations make clear that if we take Ireland’s 2020 obligation under existing EU agreements our EU requirement is 0.1 millions of tonnes (Mt) more demanding than the target proposed in the Bill. If we take Ireland’s 2020 target under EU agreements as they might evolve over the next couple of years, our EU obligation is 0.1 millions of tonnes less demanding than the target in the Bill (Bill: 47.7 Mt versus EU 47.8 Mt). For all intents and purposes, the target in the Bill and our EU obligations were the same and implications to the contrary are misguided.
What is clear is that these musings from the Department of Finance will be studied carefully by the people currently putting bread on our table.
Europe has no longer any sympathy for Ireland dragging its heels on environmental protection and the European Court of Justice is well down the road of levying hefty fines on the State.
It is inconceivable that the European taxpayer will countenance lending more money to Ireland to pay fines for not keeping the environmental bargains we as a nation signed up to. We have nine years to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent over the 2005 figures in the non-traded sector. Targets, enforced by legislation, are the only realistic option to address this. The days of aspirational fudges and derogations are over and it is not in the national interest to perpetuate this myth.
Another supine National Climate Change Strategy or a targetless Climate Change Bill will further reinforce perceptions abroad that Ireland’s policymakers are unwilling to grasp the nettle on this defining problem of the 21st century. – Yours, etc,