Mr. Ois?n Coghlan:

I will be brief. Dr. Kelleher addressed the fair share question. In the context of Stop Climate Chaos, in particular, we coalesce with many overseas agencies but with overseas aid agencies in particular. This is where it started. In this context, the issue of fair share contributions is really important. Back when Stop Climate Chaos started, we were the sixth most generous country in the world in respect of overseas aid and the sixth most polluting country in the same peer group when it came to pollution. We are still the sixth most polluting country. The overall number has dropped, but, per head of population, we are still the sixth most polluting country in the OECD. We have, therefore, a lot of work to do in reaching our fair share contribution. This should be the starting point for the next carbon budgeting process inside the climate council. I am concerned this was not how it did it the last time. Instead, the council looked too much initially at feasibility and practicality. While I know these are, of course, important considerations, the starting point should be our Paris Agreement commitments and the test in this regard.

I do not believe the climate council handled that well enough last time. I would be concerned if it occurred this time. We will be engaging with it, but in the committee's engagement with it, it will be really important to ask it how it is handling the Paris test for the recommendations at the end of this year, which the Parliament will have to deal with next year regarding the budgets up to 2040.

With our existing targets, the other risk is what happened ten years ago, namely that with a new Government or set of circumstances, people will have the opportunity to say the targets of the preceding Government are mad and that they will not even try to meet them. There was much of that going on from 2011 to 2014, leading to the wasted time Ms O'Neill mentioned. The law, both national and European, should stop that, but that is the risk that all politicians of good faith need to be as ready for as the risk of our not doing our fair share, which is likely.

On the big things we can stop, we need to examine seriously the data centre question. In case people did not see the advice to the new Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, which was mentioned earlier, it states we need to ration electricity used by data centres between now and 2030. We are way out of line in a different way, outside the European norm. It is an illustration of what Senator Higgins said about who gets listened to. While data centres have a role to play, we just need to keep things in proportion. If the public sees that all the renewable energy, which some people think they are putting up with but which is essential, is being used just to feed Mark Zuckerberg's algorithm to sell us more stuff, there will be considerable opposition. Energy for who is the question that Friends of the Earth asks. The renewable electricity dash we now need to make needs to be to power our future lives, not big tech.

I will address the issue of just transition, because it brings all of this together, and Senator Higgins's question on who gets listened to. My understanding is that the concept of just transition originated among unions worried about the impact of decarbonisation and workers not being listened to. I was on the task force with representatives of IBEC, social NGOs, the unions and farmers, and there was a strong consensus among the social dialogue stakeholders that there was a need for just transition to be very broad. The recommended definition of just transition for the Government, which I do not know by heart, is very much in line with SDGs and a holistic approach, which is really welcome given that it came from such a diverse group of stakeholders. I look forward to the Government setting up the just transition commission, which I understand and hope will be in the coming months. That commission will have a role in holding the ring for the kind of dialogue we need to forge a consensus or, if not a consensus, at least a shared understanding not just of the path forward, which is essential, but also of the vision as to where we need to get to.