The Government today published the Climate Action Bill, announced at a briefing with Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar and Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications Eamon Ryan.
The Bill comes following 2 years of pre-legislative strutiny and takes account of Citizen's Assembly input.
We will cover the Bill in greater detail in our Public Policy web centre but some highlights are below:
- The Bill propses a legally binding commitment that Ireland will become carbon neutral by 2050, thereby aligning with the Paris Agreement
- The Bill sets out required steps to achieve this goals and describes how the Government will progress through these steps
- There will be 3 five-year 'carbon budgets', to which the Climate Action Plan will be aligned
- These will set maximum limits for greenhouse gas emissions from all sectors of the economy
- A new Climate Action Council will replace the current Climate Change Advisory Council to advise the government. It will be on an independent statutory footing.