Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

I have no problem and am delighted to support the thrust of the motion from the Green Party because I believe its intention is to act as a wake-up call for all of us to the reality of climate change. I had not realised quite how important it was until I heard the contributions from the Fianna Fáil backbenchers. Deputy Kelly believes, I understand, that no country should take any action until forced into it, kicking and screaming, by the European Community. We will be pulled, kicking and screaming, because the economic impact, if not the environmental impact, will be felt forcefully and painfully by all of the Fianna Fáil backbenchers if they do not wake up to the reality of change and what is needed.

As the Fine Gael spokesperson on transport I want to concentrate in particular on the transport impact on energy use in the couple of minutes available. Transport is the largest user of energy in this country and this trend is set to grow. Car ownership continues to grow and more significantly our car usage is among the highest in the world, despite our tiny country. We drive more kilometres per capita than the British, the Germans and incredibly, the Americans, despite the fact we are not slow to criticise the US's level of commitment to Kyoto and climate change measures. We are really not in a position to criticise the Americans at all.

We publicly committed ourselves to limiting emission increases to 13% of the 1990 level. We are already at twice that level and by 2012 it will be three times if we do not take action immediately. Yet there is no sign of any real commitment to take action. I wonder why that is. There may be people who do not accept that global warming is a threat to our planet. There may be those who will not accept that the world's supply of fossil fuels is diminishing and that we have probably already reached peak production levels. In any event, we are on a downward curve. They are going to disappear very soon. There may be people who do not want to accept the volatility of oil supply, the impact this will have in the future and the impact that even remote disasters have on the certainty of our oil supply. There may even be those who do not accept the inexorable upward trend in the price of oil and the impact this will have, not just on our local economy, but on civilisation. If so these are people in absolute denial in the face of all evidence to the contrary. They are people with their heads in the sand and who want to keep them there, probably for vested interests, to prevent the exploration of avenues for alternative sources of fuel and energy.

Unfortunately some of those people are still in positions of power in some of the big energy using countries around the world. However, Ireland is not among those countries. We accept the reality of climate change, notwithstanding the remarks made earlier for political reasons. We know the climate is changing as a result of fossil fuels being used. All of us accept the economic argument that oil is going to get dearer and that supplies will become less certain. We cannot continue to depend on the supply of oil, so why are we not making changes? We pay lip-service to developing alternative energies, but progress always falls way behind the pace of increasing energy usage. Transport is a big energy user and there are now 500,000 more cars on the road than there were ten years ago. How can we even begin to deny that such an increase will have an impact on climate change? This increase is due to the lack of public transport. My colleague has gone through a number of Fine Gael suggestions that try to effect a switch to alternative energy sources. It is undeniable that buses are a part of the solution. Plain, sexy unpopular buses could contribute an enormous amount to reducing emissions.

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