November 29th, 2019
Ireland must do more
before the end of the year in order to meet the European Union’s climate action
objectives, a new study has found.
The report from Climate
Action Network (CAN) Europe looks at EU Member States’ draft National Energy
and Climate Plans (NECPs) and any progress they have made on recommendations
issued by the European Commission in June.
The CAN report found
that Ireland lacked climate ambition on a number of fronts and contained a
“very low share” of renewable energy compared to the level indicated by the
Commission’s summer assessment.
The report goes on to
say that Ireland indicated it was considering upping its contribution in
September, but that the Government has not made “any announcements yet”.
Ireland also signalled
to the bloc in September that it intended to increase energy efficiency, but
according to the European Commissions, Irish contributions were very low.
Further information on
the phase out of fossil fuel subsidies has not been addressed in the Climate Action
Plan, the study found.
Reacting to the
report’s findings, Catherine Devitt of Stop Climate Chaos said Ireland was
failing to take necessary climate action in contrast to “many of our European
counterparts”.
“If the Government’s
Climate Action Plan is implemented in full and on time, it will deliver
reductions of only two per cent a year for the next 10 years,” Ms Devitt
said.
Instead, Ms Devitt said
Ireland must sustain, “cuts of well above six per cent emissions reductions per
year” in order to limit global warming below 2 degrees.
The NECP should be
used an opportunity to close the country’s emissions gap, she said. Doing so would “pave
the way for Ireland to move from laggard to leader” at a European level, Ms
Devitt concluded.
“Just the starting
point”
CAN Director Europe
Wendel Trio stressed that implementing the Commission’s recommendations is
“just the starting point” for climate action in the coming decade.
“Member States must
see the current EU’s 2030 climate and energy targets as a baseline that they
must overachieve in order to cut greenhouse gas emissions at the scale needed
to stay on track with the Paris Agreement,” Mr Trio said.
The same day that the
CAN Europe report was issued, the European Parliament declared a climate emergency
and urged the Commission to ensure all proposals within the bloc are fully
committed to limiting global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.
Responding to the Parliament’s decision, Susann Scherbarth,
climate justice campaigner for Friends of the Earth Europe said: “MEPs are recognising reality, that we are in
a climate emergency that is killing people and destroying livelihoods – this
must trigger bold, transformative and rapid EU action to end the fossil fuel
age.
“The EU was largely
responsible for causing climate change, it must cease pouring fuel on the fire
in its support for climate-wrecking fossil gas [1] and instead fast-track the
switch to 100% renewable energy and community energy leaving nobody behind –
anything else is just a hollow symbol.”
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