Blog Archive
All parties commit to passing climate legislation
Posted on February 17, 2011 by Oisín Coghlan
All parties have now committed to passing climate legislation in the new Dáil.
Fine Gael
The Fine Gael manifesto includes the following on page 42:
Climate Change Legislation: Fine Gael will legislate for a climate change law that sets the Kyoto and EU2020 targets in national legislation but only on the basis of all party agreement.
Download the Fine Gael manifesto here.
Labour
The Labour manifesto includes the following on page 27:
Labour's Climate Change Bill will provide certainty about government policy, and a clear pathway for emissions reduction, in line with negotiated EU targets. Labour will also work at EU level to set up a national programme for forest carbon offsets.
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Fine Gael commits to climate legislation on all party basis
Posted on February 16, 2011 by Oisín Coghlan
The Fine Gael manifesto, published yesterday includes the following commitment to climate legislation on page 42.
11.1 Climate Change
Climate Change Legislation: Fine Gael will legislate for a climate change law that sets the Kyoto and EU2020 targets in national legislation but only on the basis of all party agreement.
You can download the manifesto here.
We're working on the cross-party support, with our allies in Stop Climate Chaos. You can join in here.
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Micheal Martin restates Fianna Fail commitment to Climate Change Bill
Posted on February 14, 2011 by Oisín Coghlan
I got the following email from Micheál Martin today, in response to an email from me (below) on the day after his election as leader of Fianna Fáil. It reaffirms his party's commitment to Climate Change Bill that the Government published before Christmas.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <michealmartintd@eircom.net>
Date: 14 February 2011 15:32
Dear Oisin,
The protection of our environment is a priority for Fianna Fáil. We are committed to an ambitious environmental programme which includes tackling climate change. We published the Climate Change Response Bill 2010 on the 23rd December 2010 which passed first stage in the Seanad before the Dail was dissolved.
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What a week, Broken Promises, Carbon Budgets and More Promises.
Posted on December 22, 2010 by Molly Walsh
What a week. What a year.
I started last week feeling rather concerned. John Gormley had promised that the Climate Bill would be published before the Dail session ended for Christmas and that was on Thursday. I've lived through a year of broken promises and pushed out deadlines, could it really be about to happen? I didn't have any indication either way but my experience taught me to be concerned.
On Tuesday Ciaran Cuffe was speaking at the IIEA about his experience in Cancun. He opened his speech by saying that coming back from Cancun was like coming out of the frying pan and into the fire, as he had gone straight into negotiations about the Climate Bill.
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Have the Greens delivered on Climate Change?
Posted on November 26, 2010 by Molly Walsh
The short answer is no. The long answer goes something like this.
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Positive noises as Oireachtas Committee publishes Climate Change Bill
Posted on October 14, 2010 by Oisín Coghlan
Yesterday the Oireachtas Climate Change Committee published a full Climate Change Bill with support from the members of the Committee from all parties. Read the committee's press release here.
Ministers Gormley and Cuffe responded with a pretty positive press release welcoming the Committee's Bill and, more importantly saying the Government Bill would be agreed and published "in the very near future". Earlier in the day the Taoiseach told the Dáil that the draft climate bill would be published "soon".
Friends of the Earth has also welcomed the Committee's Bill and urged the Government to build on this expression of consensus by bringing its own bill to the house as soon as possible before Christmas.
Today's Irish Times has a short report on it.
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Coping with Copenhagen
Posted on February 24, 2010 by Molly Walsh
Copenhagen was personally very disappointing for me. I did not expect there to be a final legally binding treaty agreed there but I had hoped for better things. I had hoped that perhaps movement would be made on sticky issues in the negotiating texts and that by the time things came to a close there would be maybe three or four areas that still needed to be worked through in 2010. What actually hap pended was that a parallel process developed, the process of drawing together the Copenhagen Accord. This sapped attention and focus from the real texts that have been being negotiated since the UN meeting in Bali two years ago.
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Copenhagen disaccord
Posted on December 20, 2009 by Molly Walsh
I'm sitting in a hotel room in Brussels. I was on my way to London to get home when my journey was thwarted by "climatique exceptionelle". The channel tunnel is closed beuase of all the snow. I'm hoping to be able to get home tomorrow.
The last blog entry that I wrote late on saturday night is now quite out of date. I was feeling very dejected and down. The weak Copenhagen Accord was all that anyone was talking about. This document put together by around 30 rich countries was a limp statement of nothing much really. It was about to be put before the meeting and i thought it was going to be adopted by all the parties. I wrote my blog and turned off my laptop and i was ready to go home. Then the screen behind me that relays what is happening in the plenary rooms popped into life. The Danish president Rasmutten was in the chair and he looked awful. Tired and sweaty he gave to floor to Tuvalu at about 3 in the morning. Tuvalu's response to the terrible document being put before them was profund and brave. Refering to the small amount of money that was being offered alongside weak and meaningless targets they said.
"It looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our people and our future," he said to applause in the chamber. "Our future is not for sale. I regret to inform you that Tuvalu cannot accept this document."
YES! It wasn't going to wash. Of the tiny number of NGOs who were allowed inside te bella centre that day only a small number were left at that time in the morning, but we clapped and smiled at each other. Next to ask for the floor was Bolivia and we knew things were looking up. There was a fightback on. And then through the night the plenary went back and forward with countries that had been involved in drafting the weak useless document defending it and latin american and african countries attacking it.
I fell asleep in cold empty bella cantre listeing to the tired negotiators wrangle through the night. Around 7am my collegue from oxfam woke me and said he was leaving. I gathred my stuff and went with him into the bitterly cold night.
Eventually the next day at some stage it was decided that the accord would be noted by the cop, meaning very little. Its there, its on record but its not a cop decision.
I'm glad that the fraction of the countries who put this together didn't get away with getting it through, but this is not what we wanted from talks. There is no fair, science based deliverance of climate justice, and we didn't really come close. Copenhagen failed as a summit to tackle climate change, and don't let obama or anyone else tell you otherwise.
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A bad deal on a bad night
Posted on December 19, 2009 by Molly Walsh
Its 2.30 in the mornign in Copenhagen in the Bella Centre. And I'm dejected. These crucial talks about how the planet is to tackle climate change have failed and failed miserablely. This morning we arrived in to news that there was the text of a draft politicial accord. All along this was not what we wanted.
The first low point of the day came when Obama addressed the Plenary. His speech was weak and set the tone for a da filled with dissapointments. I was an obama fan back in the heady days of his election campaign, but now he has failed to display the kind of inspirational policies that would match his inspirational campaign rhetoric.
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Open the door, De Boer!
Posted on December 17, 2009 by Molly Walsh
What happened yesterday was a nail in the coffin for any belief I might ever have had left that the UNFCCC is an open democratic and transparent process.We heard a few days ago that every NGO group would only be allowed 20% of their registered people inside the Bella Centre. This was apparently because of capacity. WE were not pleased about this. If a process is to be open and transparent ngos must be able attend and see what is going on. Anyway we did what we were told and just like all the other observer organisations at the COP we picked some of our people to go in. These people were going to be given a white card that would now be needed along with our UN photo id that everyone has around their neck. I was lucky enough to be chosen as one for these people. This system of white cards and primary passes worked OK for Tuesday. Things were a bit quieter but we did manage to do a good flash mob action wearing blue ponchos and chanting "we stand with Africa, Kyoto targets now".Minister Eamon Ryan even joined in a bit, without really knowing what he was being dragged into!
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