Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank our guests for coming in. There are a million areas of interest coming out of their contributions. I will perhaps finish the sentence that Deputy Cronin was in the middle of, which is that we cannot afford an extractive model on a finite planet with competing needs. That comes through in many different points. It requires very challenging thinking about how we live together on the planet. I want to pick up on a few of the key points that were raised. As was said, so many practical ideas have been put forward here, as well as some very good, challenging and new ways of framing them. There was really good input on the circular economy but also the need for greater ambition in that area. It is not just about recycling; it is also about the right to repair, which is something we still do not have, or the measures which other countries have taken against in-built obsolescence.

Again, this is a production measure. When we talk about the circular economy, it is not just what is bought. It should not be possible to produce things that are designed to fail within a year or two years and it certainly should not be possible to produce things and dispose of them when the profit margins go down, which is that measure we have heard of - the disposal of unused goods to maintain an amount. We have made a start but we very much need those measures that tackle the production side in a strong way and not just on the consumption side of it.

Data centres were mentioned. Part of the disposable culture that gets pushed is the quite aggressive pushing of it through data. When we talk about data centres, everybody thinks about family photos or watching movies, but many different kinds of data are getting used. Some of the ones we need to look at are some of the largest consumers such as web services, that are about the ad that pops up every few minutes or every few seconds in some cases. Some of that disposable economic model is being pushed through data. Even advertising has its own data footprint. Ireland is one of the largest users of data in Europe and one of the locations for some of the largest data users. Again, these are not citizens using it. There has been an increase of 200% in electricity usage by data centres. We need to examine that in a bit more detail and ask what is and is not valuable.

Regarding housing, Doireann and Leo made a very clear point. As well as retrofitting and the fact we need more public retrofitting, because not everybody will be able to make the investment in it, we should build anything new well. They both spoke about how the new houses we build should not be dependent on fossil fuels in any way. Solar power was mentioned but we should not be digging ourselves further into a situation whereby we build houses that we will need to retrofit in the future. That is also something to bear in mind. We know a lot of big developments that were planned might not be built and the Government might come in and take them over. It is very important we do not end up with public money building developments that have lower standards because, unfortunately, build-to-rent properties have lower standards. We should be ensuring things into which we put public money are built to sustainable standards and become like much of the social housing built 30 or 40 years ago, which is still good housing that can be passed on.

Latisha made many brilliant points but one that really jumped out at me was around soil health and how, if we want to be real about talking about agriculture, we need to talk about the actual soil and how we move to that regenerative model and soil health.

Doireann mentioned that we are talking not just about carbon but about a group of gases. Greenhouse gases constitute a group of gases and we need strategies not just on carbon but on methane, which is an accelerant that heats things up. It does not last as long but it heats things up faster. We also need strategies on nitrogen and nitrates.

It is extracting. What might be meant to last 40 years is getting dragged out of the soil in a shorter period of time. We have seen that in the way bogs have been treated. I can see the value in turbary rights over many years but turbary rights are not the same as having 1.5 million tonnes of peat extracted and sold or exported, which is what we had over a very small number of years in Ireland. I see it as a disservice to rural communities and young people in rural communities because what should be a heritage is getting taken and used up by one generation in just a very small number of years. The conversation about rural communities was very strong.

It was a very good reminder that rural communities are not just the big industry in that area or just the very large agribusiness lobby. Rural communities are people who are trying to walk on paths, who want public transport or who are worried about the quality of the water they will be using in their area getting affected. The statistics around that are key. It gets framed a lot that climate action negatively affects rural communities but climate change very negatively affects rural communities. We see that even more in the Horn of Africa where it is largely rural people - pastoralists - who are dying from the impact of famine pushed by climate change.

The loss and damage facility is fundamental. The EU and the US blocked that. We need to own that it was blocked by us and we need to say it is not acceptable to us as citizens of Ireland if we do not push that forward. We know countries have done this. Denmark is a really good marker. It was one of the first countries, alongside Scotland, to acknowledge the historic responsibility for climate damage done in the global south and to make a payment this year. Yes, we want the EU to have a good position, but there is nothing to stop Ireland showing individual leadership like Denmark did on loss and damage and taking a step forward on that. It is fundamental because having 130 countries saying this matters to us, this is essential to us, and we need this a gesture of any trust, means it needs to be followed through on. One thing that was very frustrating was that, at the last COP, on the one hand, there was a reluctance to deliver loss and damage but there was a lot of conversation about derisking the transitions for big companies. Those who have made profit for 40 years from a bad model need almost to be bribed to consider a good model. We do have that greenwashing. It was rightly called out by one of the speakers. Sometimes a big corporation that does a lot of climate damage has a tiny subsidiary with a rainbow on it and some leaves that gets centre stage focus.

There is a point to carbon labelling but another piece of legislation that is active with Senator Ruane concerns corporate accountability in the wider sense, that corporations would have to publish their emissions and carbon impact not just for scope one and two, which is the energy used in making and day to day, but scope three, which is the supply chain. This is something that would be very good and should be looked at. Companies with poor ratings should not be featuring in events. Loss and damage will be one of the big tests of trust.

Needing the subject of geography was mentioned. One of the other subjects that is no longer mandatory is history. Geography and history are so important. We need to know we are on a planet and are in real time and real history. Those to me are fundamental. Understanding loss and damage is fundamental. When I mentioned the idea of who gets incentivised, just transition needs to be a ground-up thing, not a trickle-down thing, which we know does not work. When it comes to climate justice, we need to go to the most affected.

When the Cathaoirleach spoke at the beginning, he mentioned cathedral thinking. An idea I am trying to popularise as another variation on that is Newgrange thinking. What is great about Newgrange thinking as opposed to cathedral thinking is that it recognises we are on a planet. Imagine having human development that realises we are on a planet that turns round and at certain times of the year, these things happen. It is a realisation of humanity being on a planet. It is that long-term thinking but also a realisation of the planetary boundaries we are in and that this is the test of us. We talk about real time. The next eight years constitute the real time. I am really concerned that we seem to have a lot of plans for what we will do in 2028 and 2029. We need every minute of the next eight years to be used if we are going to be in a better place by 2030. It is not a matter of us needing to look better by 2030 and get our act together at the last minute.

I agree with the fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. We need to keep a watch on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons because weapons will have a further impact on the climate.

We also need to leave the Energy Charter Treaty, as most wise countries around the world are doing.