The Seanad has today (Friday, July 9), after nearly six hours of debate, passed the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Bill 2021.

The bill, due to it being amended in the Seanad, will now go back to the Dáil to be passed there before it is signed into law by the president.

Minister for the Environment Eamon Ryan said he hopes for the bill to be enacted in the autumn.

The process first began on October 7, 2020, when the government published its draft text of the bill, the initial step in setting the country on course to become climate neutral by 2050.

Defending the bill timeline

The minister has previously defended what some TDs have called a “rushed” procedure to get the legislation over the finish line.

The Irish Farmers’ Association (IFA) has said this week that it is concerned about “the way this bill was rammed through”.

“The government should take more time to scrutinise the bill and stop this headlong rush to have it on the statute book before the summer recess,” IFA president Tim Cullinan said.

Minister Ryan said in the Dáil recently that one of the reasons there is “pressure to get this bill through” is that the government wants to include this year for implementing measures. “We are on a tight timetable,” according to the minister.

Getting the climate bill through in a “timely manner” allows Ireland to play its part “both within the EU, which is looking to set higher and more ambitious climate targets, and as part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will meet in Glasgow this November to commit to higher ambitions”.

According to the minister, in pre-legislative scrutiny undertaken by the Joint Committee on Climate Action months ago, it was “unusual in that the committee went through the draft text of the bill line by line and word by word” – with those “50 hours of discussion” contributing to finalising the bill, subsequently approved by government on March 23.

Climate bill amendments

The changes made to the climate bill during its time in the Seanad include those allowing for recognition of carbon removals as part of sectoral targets and carbon budgets.

Last week, the minister said that he intended to accept two amendments related to removals brought forward by senators at Committee Stage.

Senator Tim Lombard, who brought forward one of the amendments, said that this would “give due recognition for the idea of carbon sequestration”, and told Agriland that this is a “game-changer”.

However, today, Minister Ryan tabled further amendments allowing for carbon removal accounting following “reflection and legal advice from the Attorney General’s office and others”.

“The [new] amendments give the minister [for environment] the ability, through regulation, to designate how the carbon budgets are accounted for and how the removals and the emissions reductions on the sinks are accounted for through this process,” the minister explained.

“These amendments amend [those] agreed [in] Committee Stage to provide greater clarity on how the minister will apply the sectoral regulations to regulate evolving accounting mechanisms, having regard to the rules applying in the EU.”

Senator Tim Lombard welcomed the minister’s amendments on foot of those proposed last week; saying that they bring “clarity to how we can work through the ministerial ability to set the removal targets going forward and also how the legislation will work”.