Friends of the Earth (FoE) has urged the Taoiseach to convene a meeting of Coalition party leaders to break the deadlock over the scale of carbon emissions cuts to be adopted in various sectors up to 2030.
In a letter to Micheál Martin, the environmental group outlined concerns over the Government missing its own deadline this week to agree binding “sectoral emissions ceilings” for industry, transport, electricity, buildings and agriculture under the Climate Act.
The ceilings were due to be signed-off at Cabinet but there are indications that Minister for Agriculture Charlie McConalogue is holding out for cuts at the lowest end of the proposed 22-30 per cent range in discussions with Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan. Other sectors have already agreed to cuts of 40-80 per cent.
The letter calls on the Taoiseach “to ensure all sectors step up and an overall outcome that is robust and plausible is reached speedily”.
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Oisín Coghlan, FoE chief executive, said agriculture was not being singled out unfairly and warned of economy-wide consequences if the sector was allowed to adopt the lower limit under the carbon budget process.
“This is not a simple deadlock between two line ministers. This is like Minister McConalogue holding up the budget in September by insisting he wants to spend more money than Michael McGrath can give him,” he said on Wednesday.
“We have known since the target ranges were published last November every sector would have to cut their polluting emissions at the upper end of the range to achieve the overall 51 per cent reduction enshrined in the climate law.”
Mr Coghlan said every other sector had agreed to cut emissions at the top of the range.
“Agriculture has already been given ‘special consideration’. Its proposed cut of 30 per cent is only half the 60 per cent the rest of the economy and society has to do,” he said in his letter. “If the Government makes further concessions to agriculture, who is going to explain to motorists, hauliers, householders and other businesses that they have to make even more expensive cuts?”
He added: “We would need to take one quarter of all cars off the road by 2030, or all vans, or close cement factories, or bring another quarter of all houses to zero pollution, or every household would face an extra €5,000 in costs to make up for the extra pollution that agriculture wants to still be able to emit.”
Putting such an extra burden on commuters, householders and other business “so agriculture can avoid making the big changes we all have to make is neither fair nor feasible”, Mr Coghlan said.
FoE said there was no point in pretending that the transition to zero pollution could be completely smooth.
“We have left it too late for that. You were part of Government that tried to introduce a robust climate law framework in 2010. At the time average pollution reductions of 4 per cent a year would have got us to what is now our 2030 emissions target in tonnes of greenhouse gases.”
That legislation was met with intense lobbying from vested interests that did not want legally-binding targets.
“As a result of the ‘lost decade’ that followed we are now facing average annual reductions of almost double that to achieve the same emissions level, one which is now enshrined in law.”
