Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not believe I am the final speaker. Senator Higgins is coming up after me again.

I thank the witnesses for their very sobering and realistic presentations. We all became involved in the climate change emergency because it is stark and in your face. One then becomes bogged down with committee work. I very much welcome this meeting. I do not want to sound frivolous, and certainly not in front of the eminent professors and professor emeritus, but many of us watched the movie "Don't Look Up" over Christmas. It is a satire on the deadly serious future we face with this climate emergency. My question is political, but it is not party political. The emergency is global. Globally, politics functions on the basis of reassuring people and offering them safe care plans, if not outright mollifying them, and trying to give them certainty. It has functioned almost as a brand or a product. It is useless for what we are facing with this raw science. Physics does not care if politics is hard. Do the witnesses believe that we will find the leadership necessary to finally look at this and face it, since we are constantly pushing the responsibility to the next generation? We did this with the bank debt. Do the witnesses believe we will do what is necessary and that we will do it on time?

I thank the witnesses for highlighting the scale of the problem and the urgency required, and for giving us a good cold bucket of water in the face to remind us of that urgency. Just transition and equity are critical, and I am glad they have been raised. Ireland should be pushing its diplomatic role internationally. That is an opportunity for us.

Professors Sweeney and Anderson referred to the carbon budgets. The IPCC's carbon budgets, which dictate what the Climate Change Advisory Council puts forward, were drawn up on the basis that the permafrost under Siberia and Greenland will melt slowly. Recent events, however, such as the forest fire in Siberia last year, indicate that this may happen more abruptly and that there could be a faster thaw. What would that mean for us, as a society, and for humanity globally?

We really must challenge the economic model of constant growth. I am always saying this because the two just cannot balance. We cannot keep expanding and expect growth all the time. It just will not work.

I thank the witnesses for the presentations. They provided the sobering start to the year that I needed.