Catch up on Climate Action - October 2020

On October 13th 2005 we launched our very first e-action to get all 166 TDs in the Dáil to sign a Climate Pledge promising that Ireland would do its fair share to tackle global climate change. And last week marked our 15 year anniversary! This e-action enabled the public to email their local TDs urging them to sign the pledge for the very first time.

Now fast-forward 15 years to today and our team is working away to ensure the Government pass a strong Climate Law. And emailing TDs and taking e-actions has become the bread and butter of our campaigns!

Faster and Fairer Climate Action

After 2 years of campaigning the Government published a new Climate Action Bill on the 7th October. Our first take was "It’s a substantial improvement on the 2015 law but significant weaknesses remain". We’ll be campaigning with the other members of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition to strengthen the Bill in the coming weeks and months. The Government wants to pass the Bill into law before Christmas. We want it in law as soon as it's strong enough to work effectively.

I was in studio for the RTE Six One News to give my reaction to the Bill. You can watch it back below. And George Lee gives his analysis which you can catch here at this link.

Over 300 people joined me for our webinar on the Bill on 12th October, where Stop Climate Chaos Policy Coordinator Sadhbh O’Neill, Diarmuid Torney from DCU and Prof John Sweeney broke down the good, the bad and the ugly in the Bill. A recording of the webinar can be viewed here. You might also like to watch our first two webinars about the Climate Law which are available here. 

We’re acutely conscious that this Bill is just the framework for action. It’s the rules of the game, not the result. Passing it is the starting gun in the race of a lifetime, the race to eliminate our polluting emissions fast enough to avoid complete climate breakdown and fairly enough to leave no one behind.

That’s why our work on the Climate Bill is part of our broader campaign for faster and fairer climate action with Stop Climate Chaos. You can see a short summary of the campaign here. I laid out the campaign in some detail in a speech to the annual Environment Ireland Conference last Friday. You can listen back here.

We have now completed the detailed assessment of the Bill with the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition. We’ll be launching a new e-action later this week urging TDs to strenghten the Climate Bill and close the loopholes in it. And you can get more involved by volunteering to talk to your local TDs along with other people in your area. Just fill out this form and we’ll be in touch with all the support you need to connect online locally and press your TDs to support faster and fairer climate action.