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On 14th May, Dr Orla Kelleher was invited to appear before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action to discuss the finalisation of the draft National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and national Long term Strategy (nLTS). Dr Kelleher, along with colleagues at Environmental Justice Network Ireland, Irish Environmental Pillar, and Stop Climate Chaos, highlighted issues with Ireland’s two draft climate plans including delays, lack of ambition, incompleteness and non-alignment and poor public participation. Ireland is due to submit its final NECP to the European Commission by June 2024 and to also finalise its nLTS shortly.
Dr Kelleher’s contributions at the hearing focused on issues relating to Ireland’s overreliance on the future availability of negative emissions technologies, intergenerational justice, and Ireland’s requirement to make fair share contribution to the temperature goal of the Paris Agreement. Her contributions were based on her engaged research on EU and Irish climate governance with Environmental Justice Network Ireland over the last year. You can read some of the project outputs here: https://ejni.net/climate-governance-observatory/. You can read some news coverage of the hearing: here and here.