Ireland is on track to possibly become the first country in the world to fully divest from fossil fuel investments after the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill was approved by Dáil Éireann, the Irish lower house on July 12, 2018. The Bill now moves on to country’s Senate, Seanad Éireann, the upper house of Ireland’s legislature the Oireachtas, later this year where it is expected to pass.
First introduced in 2016 by independent politician Thomas Pringle TD, the Bill has seen active support from the Catholic relief and development agency Trócaire, other civil society, activist and student groups, and the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) that helped draft the Bill. It has since been backed by the Irish government which has helped to secure its passage through the Dáil.
I think it’s significant in shaping the whole argument around climate change. Not only is this a testament to cross-party co-operation and support on the issue of climate change in Ireland but a victory for the international fossil fuel divestment movement too, said Thomas Pringle TD.
Amongst other things, the Bill calls for the complete divestment by the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF), a EUR 8.9 billion sovereign development fund, of its holdings in fossil fuel companies within five years of approval of the Bill. According to Trócaire, ISIF’s stake in the global fossil fuel industry stood at EUR 318 million across 150 companies worldwide in June 2017.
Today the Oireachtas has made a powerful statement. It has responded to the public’s call for leadership on this issue and sent a powerful signal to the international community about the need to speed up the phase-out of fossil fuels if global climate goals are to be delivered. This is vital. Climate change is one of the leading drivers of poverty and hunger in the developing world and we see its devastating impact every day in the communities in which we work. This means the Bill is both substantive and symbolic. It will stop public money being invested against the public interest, and it sends a clear signal nationally and globally that action on the climate crisis needs to be accelerated urgently, starting with the phase-out of fossil fuels, commented Éamonn Meehan, Executive Director of Trócaire.
This makes Ireland possibly the first country in the world to commit to fully withdrawing public money invested in global fossil fuel companies if approved by the country’s Senate, Seanad Éireann, the upper house of Ireland’s legislature the Oireachtas later this year.
Governments will not meet their obligations under the Paris Agreement on Climate Change if they continue to financially sustain the fossil fuel industry. Countries the world over must now urgently follow Ireland’s lead and divest from fossil fuels, said Gerry Liston, the Legal Officer with the Global Legal Action Network, who drafted the Bill.
the report stage on July 12, 2018 (photo courtesy Mark Stedman).
