Joint Committee of the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht launch their Report on the Outline Heads of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill 2013.

An Taisce - the National Trust for Ireland – urges Minister Hogan to treat the ‘observations’ of the Joint Committee of the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht’ report on the ‘Outline Heads of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill’ as ‘recommendations’.

The report launched today does not call for targets for 2050 as urged by An Taisce and many other submissions to the Committee. However the report does restate the EU 20% targets for the years 2013 to 2020 which have been adopted by the Government, with a reduction from 45 to 37.5 million tonnes CO2 equivalent over that period. In any case, a strong Bill will be required to ensure that Ireland meets it EU commitments.

The report lists a number of ‘observations’ and An Taisce calls on the Minister to incorporate these into his bill. They include the provision of an annual Low Carbon Roadmap and a National Expert Advisory Body on Climate Change. We also urge the Minister to give the Advisory Body a strong role in ensuring that Ireland meets it 2020 targets and on to ensure that there are strong 2050 targets that are also met.

ENDS

For further information, please call:

James Nix, Policy Director, An Taisce Tel: +353 86 8394129

Charles Stanley-Smith, Communications, An Taisce +353 87 2411995

Email: [email protected]

An Taisce The National Trust for Ireland

www.antaisce.ie