Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will not abuse the situation. The witnesses make a strong case for a bottom-up approach. Are they aware of examples at local level in Ireland or in other countries that might work? They might also comment on the local authorities' climate action plans, which are distillations of the national Climate Action Plan and are being worked on by local authorities across the country at the moment. We had representations at a previous session from the Local Government Management Agency and the County and City Management Association. The Minister spoke about it briefly at a meeting of this committee. He stated that the local authorities' climate action plans needed to take a broad view and look not just at operational emissions but also at the decisions that local authorities took in respect of housing, transport, planning and so on. That is probably where the witnesses' organisations come in. They have an important role in local authority decision making. That was the intent of PPNs when they were set up eight years or so ago. They elect members to local authorities' strategic policy committees, SPCs, so they have a role to play, but is that enough?

The crisis is urgent and serious and we are hitting resistance left, right and centre, so we need to figure out what the way forward is. We need to reduce emissions by 50% before 2030 based on the 2018 levels. That is an almost impossible task. We have to figure out what the way forward is quickly to achieve these drastic emissions cuts. What model will achieve buy-in?