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IRELAND IS LIKELY to look at developing carbon capture and storage technologies but cannot use that as a “cover” for fossil fuels, the Minister for Climate has said.
Minister Eamon Ryan is at the COP28 climate conference in Dubai, where countries are negotiating complicated agreements about efforts to fight climate change.
A major focus of negotiations is producing a document, known as a decision text, that will call on countries to level up climate action. It comes on the back of an assessment known as the Global Stocktake which is indicating that the world is way off track to limit temperature rise to manageable levels.
The negotiations often come down at the 11th hour to heated debates over precise phrases, like whether a call to reduce fossil fuels covers all fossil fuels or just ‘unabated’ ones — unabated being a somewhat vague term with competing definitions, but generally understood to refer to fossil fuel burning that is not ‘compensated’ for in some other way.
Carbon capture and storage can potentially capture emissions that have been created in industrial processes and stop them from clogging up the atmosphere — but the technology is expensive, underdeveloped, and widely criticised by climate justice campaigners, who fear the prospect of having the technology in the future will be used as an excuse to avoid making essential emissions cuts now.
Speaking to reporters today, Minister Ryan said that Ireland is ultimately “going to do carbon capture and storage” but that “the real key question is you can’t use that as a cover for unsustainable fossil fuel expansion”.
The minister said Ireland’s next Climate Action Plan, which is expected to be published before the end of the year, will need to include additional measures around “cement plants and carbon capture”.
“We already know we have enough oil and gas discovered already to burn the planet. The idea that we’re going to have a massive expansion of fossil fuels, of new oil fields, new gas discoveries, is not aligned with the 1.5 degree limit,” he said.
“Some people have a very valid concern that abatement could be used as a get out of jail card for the fossil fuel industry. That’s not on. One of the things we need here is we need a scientific assessment of how much exactly would we need abatement for the likes of the steel and cement sector.”
His comments followed remarks by Taoiseach Leo Varadkar yesterday, who told reporters that Ireland will be pushing for an agreement that targets fossil fuels but that he would be content with countries using abatement measures like carbon capture to decrease their emissions.
The Taoiseach’s speech at the conference earlier in the day said that “this COP must also set us on a clear path to a safe and planned reduction in the use of fossil fuels”.
Friends of the Earth chief Oisín Coghlan yesterday criticised the Taoiseach’s position, saying his language was “ambigious, if not evasive”.
“We need the government to clarify that Ireland is committed to phasing our fossil fuels entirely, not just reducing them,” Coghlan said.
The negotiations at COP28 to make those important decisions about where countries will go from here to try to get back on track are ongoing, though still in early stages.
Minister Ryan told Irish reporters at the conference this afternoon: “I just came out of a meeting where Jennifer Morgan [a negotiator for Germany], who is a wily negotiator, said it should be like a ping pong game. It should be from the officials over to the politicians, tap back to the officials, tap back to the politicians.”
“I got sight of the the first draft of the text of the Global Stocktake. It’s good, it reads well, but it’s quite general and it needs a lot more detail and more specifics,” he said.
“As part of that ping pong game, I think that the politicians need to be putting in higher ambition and more specific targets and goals and ways in which we respond to the Global Stocktake, particularly on finance and mitigation.”
The scale of recent changes to the climate is “unprecedented” over hundreds and thousands of years, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
The IPCC, which brings together hundreds of scientists to assess climate research, has said that if global average temperatures rise by 1.5 degrees – a threshold it is widely expected will be surpassed – the world “faces unavoidable multiple climate hazards” in the next 20 years.
Exceeding a 1.5 degree rise, even temporarily, would lead to “additional severe impacts, some of which will be irreversible”.
Outside of negotiations, the theme of conference today is health, with numerous organisations and countries holding talks around the links between climate change and negative effects on human health.
The International Society of Doctors for the Environment held a short protest outside meeting rooms, chanting that “the climate crisis is a health crisis” and demanding “fossil fuel phaseout now”.
Yesterday, 120 countries signed up to a Climate and Health Declaration put forward by the UAE, which urges governments to protect communities from climate impacts like extreme heat stress and the spread of infectious diseases, and to prepare health systems to deal with them.
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WHAT A BLUFFER!!!!!!
NO IDEA what he’s talking about.
The ‘ultimate’ spoofer…..& now he’s flying back& forth to Dubai to vote confidence in another spoofer, Helen mcentee. That jet Costs taxpayer €7000 an hour……never mind the environmental impact
@Corporate Interests:
You OK hun?
@Corporate Interests: I’ve read some shite in my time but that has to be up there.
@Mary Looners: Stephen. You need a day off.
@Mary Looners: back to bed kearon.
@Corporate Interests: The Inevitable Collapse – Confronting the Reality of the Climate Crisis
https://xbard.me/the-inevitable-collapse-confronting-the-reality-of-the-climate-crisis/
Just increase taxes for the people that can’t afford it the most, that will sort it Eamon, while the likes of yourselswanns around the globe in private jets and Business class flights, the worst form of transport for pollution that is somehow exempt from any sort of tax on the aviation fuel it uses.
@john dennehy:
Don’t forget the “carbon tax” that’s added on the gas and electricity bills that you then have the pleasure of paying VAT for…
Taxing a tax, VAT on a carbon tax, only in Ireland.
@Mary Looners: You’re a sap. Congrats!
@Mary Looners: Yeah! Like politicians that get expenses when absent, if they produce a doctors cert. No other employee gets expenses to go to their place of employment. They only get expenses if their work is away from their OFFICE and they most certainly don’t get them if they produce a doctors cert.
You couldn’t make it up, but somehow they did.
@john dennehy: careful now, the journal mods are out in force today protecting their masters from criticism. It’s not moderating at all.
@Mary Looners: image is everything in government as there are 355,000 carers in Ireland only 5% get carers allowance some get €1 per week. Old people on low incomes cannot get the fuel allowance. Carbon taxes are not ring fenced they’re used to fly around political whingers and spongers who also get paid hundreds in travel expenses. As I said image is everything to this government but pull up the carpet and you see the real ring fencing and for who.
@Mike: a Fianna fail sap, which is even worse. Imagine how bad you have to be to be thrown out of Fianna fail?
@Mary Looners: your NUTS
So Ryan is telling you and me about our carbon footprint…but yet he is traveling back from Dubai to vote for Helen McEntee and then fly back to Dubai…along with many other delegates flying to Dubai in their Jets and Private Jets…and the host country for COP2024 is one of biggest fossil fuels producers in the world you could not make up the hypocrisy of global warming
@Paul Maguire: ‘you could not make up the hypocrisy of global warming’: climate change cannot be hypocritical. It is a mere fact, not a person.
@Paul Maguire: what is COP2024?
@Brendan O’Brien: Take a break.
@Brendan O’Brien: you are accussing people on here of denying climate change, yet you yourself are the biggest denier of all these hypocrisy riddled politicians like cabbage eamo literally flying back and fourth while telling the rest of us to cut back
Can he not use zoom for the rest of the cop28 thing ?. So far, it’s just been a meeting of ‘we must do this. We must do that ..’ anyway. Same as always.
The same bloke that told us a few years ago driving diesel cars was the way to go!!!
A complete waffler
The whole thing is a joke
He wants us to pay for the hire of a ship, the docking fees etc. import gas from thousands of mile away with all the carbon that will use and not open gas fields off our own shores. The man and his party are a bunch of nutters
Who cares anymore, sick of listening to the green agenda, tax everything
Eamon’s selling snake oil
Minister for talking bollox
@David O Brien: do they talk anytimg else?
@Oh Mammy: Very good point
Without adding to the vitriol or taking a cheap shot, I will say Ryan’s flagrant disregard for the environment is a very bad example to all. I understand his democratic concern, but using a jet like a bus. Not good. The contradiction and irony is blatant, given where and what he is.
@Keth Tgi: Well, I hope you read the article telling us how he would prefer to stay at COP28, but needs must where democracy is concerned…..what he doesn’t realise is that we would prefer if he stayed at COP28 as well, or anywhere else for that matter, as long as it is not here, forever!!
@Joe x: the man slept through Dail debates, democracy is the last thing on his mind. His only worried the gov lose the vote and he is then unemployed, because you can be sure he won’t be re elected. There all gone into survival mode now, sleeping eamon included.
@Joe x: the lad doesnt know what democracy or his job in general is at home. I mean a transport minister that hates anyone who doesnt drive EV’s and literally was caught sleeping on the job…..
If the government is so confident on winning the no confidence vote, why do you have to return and there by increasing your carbon footprint? Why are you defending return flights as a Green Minister?
As always with our right wing greenwashing party, the solution runs through handing the rich money at the expense of working people and the poor.
As your man jets around the world
Look what the greens have done to Fairview .. it’s a disaster with ridiculous traffic jams . The end result will be two narrow lanes and a bicycle lane ? .
God almighty. WTF is he trying to say.
If this is the best from a green tinged government the planet is doomed
He the minister of climate now and not the environment?!? When did that happen
@Shane C: June 2020, when the government was formed.
How come a Green leader isn’t asking the question, “who blew up Nordstream”?
Methinks they have omitted a word in the naming of the conference. It should be
COP OUT 28.
What a bluffer, I would never vote for him or his party.
Great idea same as them wooden boxes in cork that cost 600 grand and 40 grand a year to service while 6 planted trees would have done a better job
CCS doesn’t work. It will never work. It is just BS from polluters. Time for renewables.
A mere Minnow in a sea full of Sharks
In this and the previous ‘article’ from the Minster, he has managed to say absolutely nothing, the Minster has no idea what to do and is unwilling to invest in the infrastructure needed to deal with the everchanging climate, the head of Saudi oil (now that cop in over) has just come out claiming it’s all bogus and has no intension of weaning western addicts from his drug of choice, WHY WOULD HE!?… The Minster has done more damage than good for the green movement in the last 4 years, there needs to be far more than empty rhetoric, bikes and congestion charges. Get real Mr. Ryan, actually do something. (P.S. Journal editors, there’s a better story involving Mary Robinson),
On another note, Bob Collins, chairman of the policing authority, is surprised that our police are reluctant to use force against thugs. Most likely he’s from the judge no… school of “How to Enjoy Living in Cloud Cuckoo Land”. Both of them totally removed from the reality of most people’s lives.
An increase in the 0.4% of the atmosphere represented by Carbon Dioxide cannot be described as ‘Clogging up the Atmosphere’.
The voters are waiting in the tall grass
I want to stay but democracy brings me back what a green man he is he is a hypocritical man he should resign today
If brains were made of dynamite he wouldn’t have enough to blow his nose!!
Is there actual proof that temperature’s would stop rising if emissions were lowered? And why is it always other countries drilling for oil and gas in irish waters, getting it free then selling it back to us?
Makes you wonder who in their right minds elect these green party Muppets
You dont need technology, just plant a decent amount of native forests and thats your carbon capture
Sultan Al Jaber, President of Cop28, has claimed that there is ‘no science’ indicating that a phase-out of fossil fuels is required to restrict global heating to 1.5C. This is beyond astonishing. A fossil fuel stooge, whose role is to disrupt progress, hijacking common sense.
Clown. Absolute spoofer.
Interesting article in the Irish Independent showing the potential of willow as a renewable source of energy: https://www.independent.ie/business/meet-the-man-filling-the-peat-briquette-gap-with-willowwarm-logs-and-is-now-planning-a-125m-power-station-to-supply-data-centres/a1077239540.html
The latest article on Haymon Ryan says he would prefer to at Cop. Enjoying the junket
He’s an absolute DISGUSTING INDIVIDUAL flying here there and everywhere and preaching and taxing us for a problem that isn’t ours! They’ll be obsolete soon!!!!
@Mary Looners: do you have the cheerleaders outfit to go with the pom poms for your job on here defending the government?
Scam
Carbon capture is a huge waste of money and requires large amounts of energy. Please vote this fool out of office.
@gregory pym: But you can’t use it as an excuse to offset your emissions target that’s a luxury reserved for the mega corps and most polluting countries around the world ie Carbon Credit BS
Everyone bought into scientific method modelling just as 1930′s German society bought into the misadventure with the Earth science of biology as Origin of Species and natural selection.
The politician is either well-meaning with pollution control and misguided about Ireland’s unchanging maritime climate or lacks complete consideration.
@Gearoid O’Ceilleachair: We’ve heard you Gearoid. Solutions pal, solutions? Get to the point.
A fkn “ping pong game”? Is he for real? Anyone who can imagine in any way that this is a game has been in politics too long! Replace him or go down Green Party!!
Carbon capture is a fantasy greenwash!!
Prefer to stay at Cop
CSS vs coal allows for greater environmental gains (particularly regarding CO2 emissions), such as savings of between 550 and 1,300 kg approx. of CO2 per ton burned.
What planet is this man on, unbelievable statements coming out from his mouth
Hypocrite
The nasty comments about Minister Eamon Ryan says more about the ignorance of the contributors than about Eamon Ryan.He has no choice about returning to the Dail for a ridiculous SF No Confidence Motion in the Minister for Justice.That is politics.
@Norman Farragher: of course Eamonn
@Norman Farragher: Nope. What has he done? Where are the electric busses? Wheres is the train lines? What’s the plan for the movement of goods? and on and on and on. If you think the minister has done a real great job then you need to reflect on your ignorance.
@Norman Farragher: At last. A sensible comment!!
@Norman Farragher: are you feeling alright??????
@Norman Farragher: Goes to prove that the return of Ryan will be needed to defeat the motion . Panic setting in FFG/ Greens…The loss of another Justice Minister certainly would not make the Blueshirts the supposedly law and order party look good. Perhaps another photo opportunity with her garda escort walking down O’ Connell Street would be a bigger disaster than the first time McEntee did it.
@Norman Farragher: People see him for what he is a complete bluffer, hes been caught twice on camera sleeping while on the job, hes if not the worst transport minister in history. His party have literally helped turn more people against climate change due to his pig headed attacks on car users, people who use turf and anything thats in climate change virtue signallers magazine of the month to look good. He tells people to car pool and use our crap public transport while he flys business class to places like china for a paddys week knees up……wakey wakey as to why hes not liked
@Chris Gaffney: if hes so love do a poll to see who would vote him and the greens back in if we had an election tomorrow?. Even the hardcore FFG mob wouldnt vote for him cos with him as leader the greens are now on par with labour as being the least popular party.
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