Irish
Centre For Human Rights and NGOs issue Joint Statement calling on
Government to implement Fracked Gas Import Ban in the Climate Bill
following recommendation by Climate Committee
The
Irish Centre for Human
Rights’
Human Rights Law Clinic and local NGOs campaigning
against LNG terminals, Fracking and Fracked Gas Imports into Ireland ‘Friends of the Earth’, ‘Safety Before LNG’, ‘Love Leitrim’,
‘Belcoo Frack Free’ and ‘FutureProof
Clare’ have written
to the 3 party leaders in Government with a
Joint Statement calling on the
Government to implement a ban on the importation
of fracked gas in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development
(Amendment)
Bill 2020 ('Climate Bill'). They want the Government to insert
into the Climate Bill a section that amends the Petroleum and Other
Minerals
Development Act 1960 in order to prohibit the importation or sale of
fracked
gas into Ireland.
The
Joint Statement
responds to the recommendation by the Joint Committee on Climate Action
in its
pre-legislative scrutiny report of the Climate Bill “that
the Minister
address in the Bill and/or revert to the Committee with a comprehensive
plan to
ban the importation of fracked gas and specifically to ban LNG
terminals in
Ireland within the year 2021”.
The
Joint Statement includes a legal
opinion
demonstrating that the proposed statutory ban is compatible with EU,
EFTA and
WTO trade rules.
In
November the High
Court quashed development consent for Shannon LNG to construct a
fracked gas
import terminal on the Shannon Estuary. The Joint Statement
argues that
now is the ideal opportunity to establish a legislative prohibition on
importing fracked gas into Ireland. This is a measure that the 2020
Programme
for Government and widespread public opinion support, and that
scientific
evidence shows increasingly to be necessary, as the Joint Statement and
legal opinion
explain.
The
groups are appealing directly to Minister Ryan, as Minister in
charge of the drafting of the Climate Bill on behalf of the government,
to
grasp this opportunity at a unique time where we have consensus from
both the
Programme for Government and the Climate Committee to take this
meaningful
climate action that will leave a legacy that will last beyond the
lifetime of
this government, namely a legislative and world-first ban on fracked
gas
imports.
A
fracked gas import ban would demonstrate a willingness to tackle the
world’s largest single super emitter of methane and one of the worst
contributors to climate change. It would also demonstrate solidarity
and empathy with communities in
Pennsylvania, Texas, Northern Ireland and elsewhere affected by, or
threatened
with, the scourge of fracking. Such a
ban would set Ireland on course to become a Global Climate Leader.
Ireland
would be the first country in the world to ban the importation of
fracked gas
having already implemented a legislative ban on fracking in 2017.
The global trade in LNG is being fueled by the boom in
climate-destructive
fracking and both are inextricably linked.
A
ban on fracked gas imports would
also send a strong market signal to the fracking industry that Ireland
would
not be a market for fracked gas from Northern Ireland and would
undermine the
business case for fracking in Northern Ireland about which the
Executive
is expected to make a decision in the coming months.
Click here or here to view the full Joint
Statement and legal opinion.
