Ms Louise Fitzgerald:

With regard to coalition building, I am speaking to this new dynamic understanding of policy that is coming out of social and political science research and how we can harness the feedback effects of policy and understanding the political landscape. This goes beyond just public consultation, which is also a good step. This is also about what policy choices we make and the outcomes and effects they have. To underline what has already been said, feed-in tariffs, for example, have the effect of building powerful coalitions. In Germany there were all sorts of actors who became supportive of the policy and really tried to protect it, including people who may not necessarily have been green-minded. They support it being ratcheted up.

It is really important to note the social dimension. We have seen the yellow vest movement in France and what happens when we do not have this lens in implementing the decarbonisation policy. There was mention of a just transition and this should not be about climate action versus farmers or peat workers. Farmers are on the front line of climate change and they are already experiencing it. We have seen that with the fodder crisis. The fossil fuel age is collapsing and one way or another, peat workers will see an impact from climate change policy. We must achieve this in a just way.

I will speak briefly to carbon pricing. As I stated, I am drawing on an understanding of policy dynamics. Carbon pricing should be seen as one of many tools in a policy mix. One of the issues is the need to build alternatives and allow people to have alternatives through something like a feed-in tariff. To draw on a German case, there was a delay in trying to implement carbon pricing through the emissions trading system and, essentially, there was neglect of the areas of transport, heating and the idea of a more systemic just transition. Now the country is facing the consequences, so we would do well to learn from their mistakes and not have this happen with carbon price implementation in Ireland. Green industrial support, citizen energy, bans and moratoriums can be used. The paper I quoted was by Mr. Fergus Green and Dr. Richard Denniss from 2017 and it is available online. They argue that supply-side bans have a host of advantages and gain much support, including from actors like the fossil fuel industry, which we might not expect.

Citizen energy feeds into the transformative elements and resilience in communities and globally. It builds more community resilience and this enables communities to face climate change issues. That work comes from people like Mr. Craig Morris. There is a need to look locally but also globally at what is coming. People in Mozambique are panicking, for example, and people across the global South already facing the impact of climate change are panicking. We would do well to respond right now to what we are all facing.