Following Government approval, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Mr. Phil Hogan, T.D., has released outline Heads of a Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development Bill 2013 for consideration by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht, and stakeholders.

The Minister also released the final climate policy analysis report from the Secretariat to the National Economic and Social Council: Ireland and the Climate Change Challenge: Connecting 'How Much' with 'How To', which articulates a "carbon neutral" vision for Ireland by 2050.

The Minister said: "Release of these documents today represents a further, hugely significant milestone in the Government's 2-year Programme for the development of national climate policy and legislation issued in January 2012. While the outline Heads are a little later than promised in the Programme.

"The absolute priority for Government was to ensure that we got the overall balance of the proposed provisions right having regard to the views of all stakeholders, and critical national considerations from both an environmental and an economic perspective. When we published our 2-year programme early last year, we laid out a framework under which this Government would deliver more on addressing climate change than any of our predecessors, a framework which places Ireland among the leading countries, not just within the EU but at a wider international level, in seeking to balance the challenges and objectives of a low carbon future, and deliver on both environmental and economic grounds. I am delighted to be in a position to mark the latest significant step in delivering on that ambition."

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In releasing the outline Heads, Minister Hogan said that the planned Bill would be a first step in enacting “"a critically important piece of national legislation in terms of the environmental and economic sustainability of our long-term future".

On the issue of greenhouse gas emission reduction targets, Minister Hogan said he wished to put the record straight on this critical issue. "Ireland already has a challenging greenhouse gas mitigation target for 2020, which is binding under EU law. Compliance with that target is not an option; it is absolutely paramount and any ambition we set at a national level must, and will, respect compliance with this fundamental mitigation commitment and future increases in ambition.

"As indicated in the Heads, the legislation being developed by Government will be unequivocal on compliance with existing and future obligations of the State under EU law and any international agreement to which the State becomes a party. Ireland has consistently and constructively supported EU leadership in seeking to mobilise an effective global response to climate change."

(CD)