Group seeks ‘hugely onerous climate-change obligations’, court hears
Posted on: 24-01-2019
Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) is seeking to impose a parallel track of hugely onerous climate change obligations on the State without any of the measures to ensure the public is on board, the High Court was told on Thursday.
The environmental group is seeking to quash the 2017 National Mitigation Plan (NMP) to reduce carbon emissions, which it claims has not complied with the Climate Change and Low Carbon Development Act 2015.
The group claims that because it has not achieved the reductions to which it has committed, the State is contravening the constitutional and human rights of its citizens who will be exposed to “unacceptable risks” from climate change.
In opening arguments for the State, Niamh Hyland SC defended the Government’s response to climate change. She dismissed alternative measures proposed by the environmental group, “especially because they would require huge trade-offs in Ireland’s operations as a State”.
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