Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chair and the Cathaoirleach of the Seanad for organising the meeting and particular thanks to the witnesses for being here. There are some who would suggest that young people do not have a valuable contribution to make in these and other matters and the speakers have collectively blown that out of the water. A number of themes were raised. I do not want to pick out individual contributions. It was really well coordinated and the breadth of contributions really touched on the wide range of issues. Of course, this is an all encompassing issue. On the issue of empowering young people and communities, the need for a bottom-up approach was highlighted as was the issue of just transition and equity and fairness being important in everything we do in climate action, and not just for the wealthy. Strong points were made on the rural-urban divide and not leaving anybody behind. That is an important message for Government and for legislators. I commend the witnesses on being here and they should continue with their activism, stay engaged, use their agency and power to influence others and hold us to account.

It is important to recognise, while many people are of like mind to them, there are others whose interests are not served by progressive climate action. We need to recognise that in the political space and develop approaches to deal with it.

One of the issues I would like to hear more on from contributors is the challenge to reduce the consumption of energy and materials. In recent years, there has been a huge demand for fabrics, natural materials, natural resources, or data, for example. Do the guests have a sense what the future might look like in terms of consumption? Do they see a way of reducing it?