Thread by @autofac

[Short? thread 1/n] The new Irish Climate Action Bill is now in Select Committee stage. The full list of proposed amendments is here: data.oireachtas.ie/ie/oireachtas/…

[2/n] Dedicated followers [?] will recall that I, together with Prof. John Sweeney and @AndrewLRJackson previously raised significant concerns about the way the "2021-2030 interim target" was being transposed into the Bill:

https://twitter.com/autofac/status/1382279752011153408?s=20

[3/n] #TLDR: the 2020 Programme for Government committed to "to an average 7% per annum reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions from 2021 to 2030 (a 51% reduction over the decade)". Govt subsequently agreed to put this on a binding statutory basis via the new Bill...

[4/n] However: we argued that the proposed s.6A(5), purporting to do this, was flawed both legally and scientifically...

[5/n] We offered two possible amendments to fix this. Govt has now brought forward it own (different) version: number 107 in the consolidated list.

[6/n] This codifies what we called "interpretation B" of the original draft. It does not address ANY of our criticism of that!

[7/n] It remains legally obscure: as there is no direct relationship between the budget for 2021-2030 and the emissions in any individual year (by design) it is entirely unclear how the Council is to "provide for" emissions having a certain value in one year.

[8/n] It sets NO clear maximum to the budget the Council may propose for the period: not ruling out EVEN that of the "fancifully precipitous predatory delay" pathway described here: villagemagazine.ie/the-climate-bi…

[9/n] NB: I certainly hope that the Council would NOT bring forward such a budget. But the point is that Govt wants credit for putting a meaningful limit, related to the original "7% p.a./51% overall" PfG commitment on a statutory footing...

[10/n] But their proposed amendment simply doesn't do that. I *think* I understand the political theatre behind this fudge. But it represents a tremendous failure of leadership by [whichever?] Govt party is blocking a meaningful statutory constraint.

[ends! - phew...]

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