Dear John,

The climate movement’s hard work is at risk.

Just a year ago the Dáil passed the Climate Bill by 129 votes to 10. And put into law a commitment to cut our emissions by 51% by 2030. 

Now, intense lobbying from agri-business risks undermining the whole effort. If agriculture doesn’t do its fair share then the targets for motorists, homeowners and other sectors will become implausible to the point of absurdity.

Will you contact your local TD to demand that the sectoral targets are fair and feasible for all sectors? SCC member organisation Friends of the Earth has created this e-action to make it easy for you. 

Friends of the Earth is also running a “Call your TD Zoom Clinic” at 1pm today if you’d like some support with sending a more personalised email and doing some follow up calls to your TDs.  The Government is due to make its final decision in the next week so it’s important that we act quickly!

One minute option

Ten minute option

Agriculture has already got the “special consideration” it was promised. When the Government published target ranges late last year, Agriculture got the least ambitious: pollution reduction of 22% to 30%. Compared to 42% to 50% for transport and 62% to 81% for electricity.

The maths were clear immediately. We could only hit our overall target if every sector made the maximum pollution cut. And if any sector did less, others would have to pick up the slack but there’s a limit to what’s feasible, not to mention fair.

Now Agriculture is the only sector where the Minister hasn’t accepted the higher target, trying to push the effort onto others and risking the credibility of the whole exercise.

Making a call to your TD’s office, even just to check if they got your email will increase its impact tenfold. On the Zoom call, I’ll run through what’s going on with the sectoral targets and then you can email your own personal message to your local TDs and call their office to make sure they read it. 

Call your TD Zoom Clinic
Wednesday 6th July 1pm - 2pm

If Agriculture steps up and accepts a 30% reduction target, the rest of the economy and society still has to cut by twice as much, twice as fast, by 60% by 2030. But if the lobby groups have their way, and agriculture only has a 22% target, the rest of the economy and society would have to cut emissions by more than three times as much and three times as fast, by 68% by 2030. UCC’s Professor Hannah Daly, an expert emissions analyst, found that to be “completely implausible”.

So the credibility of the whole climate action plan is on the line. If we end up with targets like a 90% cut in electricity emissions and 66% cuts from transport and buildings - just so agri-export businesses can stick at 22% - no one will be able to take any of the targets seriously and the pressure for serious action could easily falter.

We lost a decade of climate action because the IFA killed the 2011 Climate Bill. We just can’t afford to let that happen again. We need to raise our voices now. The law is on our side but we always knew that while it changed the rules of the game, it didn’t determine the result. We still need enough of us to get stuck in.

When the Green Party were entering Government for the first time in 2007, Fianna Fáil minister Seamus Brennan remarked “You're playing senior hurling now lads”. Well, this is senior hurling now for sure. And we won’t win standing on the sidelines.

Please take action today.

Yours in haste,

Oisín

P.S. Professor Hannah Daly has tweeted this excellent twitter thread, tagging the relevant politicians and setting out why it’s crucial that the sectoral emission targets are fair and feasible. Could you retweet it? If it gets lots of retweets it will help put pressure on the Government to stand firm and protect our climate targets.  

Stop Climate Chaos is a coalition of civil society organizations campaigning to ensure Ireland does its fair share to tackle the causes and consequences of climate change.