Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change) | Oireachtas source

I hope the Tánaiste will be a bit more progressive in answering me. The Danish Government decided last week to leave the Energy Charter Treaty. It joined a growing list of European countries that have left the treaty. Eight European countries have declared intentions to leave and 15 EU member states, at least 60% of the EU population, are needed for the EU to withdraw from the treaty. Final talks are ongoing at the moment. The treaty has been described as a threat to climate action by civil society groups and UN experts. It violates the goals of the Paris climate agreement by offering legal protection to climate-wrecking fossil fuel companies. This treaty allows fossil fuel companies to sue governments due to reduced profits because of environmental reforms of climate action. The most notorious case is the suing of the Netherlands for €2 billion by German giants RWE and Juniper for the Netherlands' decision to phase out coal.

We are in the middle of a climate catastrophe and our Government, which contains a so-called Green Party, cannot support a decision to leave a treaty that allows giant corporations, which are already making billions of euro in extra profit due to price-gouging and greed, to sue governments for essential moves such as phasing out fossil fuels like coal. Coal is one of the fossil fuels most deadly to the planet and we are allowing corporations with billions of euro in profits to sue countries over its phasing out. It is a joke. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, said we are protecting €2.15 trillion in profits for these energy companies. We have seen this time and again with treaties such as the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, TTIP. The Government seems wed to the idea that giant companies with multi-billion euro profit lines that grow year by year should have the right to sue our Government for implementing reforms to protect our citizens and this planet from the harms of climate change and the profit and greed of neoliberal capitalism.

The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Deputy Ryan, stated that Ireland will support an EU decision to leave the treaty and our geography and educated workforce offers us one of the greatest opportunities to lead on new green technologies and policies. We can be sued for developing those policies because it is eating into the profits of those companies. More than that, year by year, one IPCC report after another states that the world is hurtling towards a disaster of unmanageable proportions. Scientists and experts are talking about societal and economic collapse on a scale not seen in modern times. People all over the world are dying because of the climate catastrophe. This treaty is in direct opposition to taking action on this disaster. Experts call this treaty utter failure and ecocide. Will this Government commit to leaving the treaty or will it continue to support a treaty that values the profits of massive corporations over the lives of every person who lives on this planet?

See this speech in context