Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

——the EU Environment Commissioner, Stavros Dimas, made the shocking statement in Dublin that climate change, not terrorism, is today's most serious global threat. Will the Taoiseach take this matter seriously? Since 2001 we have had warnings from British and US weather services that ignoring climate change will surely be the most costly of all possible choices for us and our children.

In 2003 the then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, issued a report, Climate Change: Scenarios and Impacts for Ireland, which has not been responded to in the detail that is required. Today's newspaper refers to the shocking report of the European Environment Agency, Transport and Environment: Facing a Dilemma 2005. It reads like an arrest warrant for the Government. It states that greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland are up 130% over the past ten years while the EU average is just 22%. It states that 370,000 people die per annum in the EU as a result of air pollution alone and that in the past ten years Irish people have doubled the distance they travel, mainly by car, compared to other EU countries. In many EU countries people have reduced the car miles they are travelling.

Will the Taoiseach admit there has been a failure in terms of public transport investment and planning and the implementation of required building regulations? Will he indicate the action he will take in this regard? The €27 million in renewable energy grants are a welcome drop in the ocean. Who will pay the €1 billion plus bill that will accrue between 2008 and 2012 under the emissions trading scheme? Where is the national climate change strategy review that was promised before the end of last year and why has the Taoiseach continued to subsidise large polluters like CRH when, according to today's newspapers, he is penalising green industries like Ecocem?

The Government has not said — it has been stated frequently in England — who will pay for the flood protection that is required. In last Friday's edition of The Irish Times it was stated that the Taoiseach's constituency, and quite a number of others, will be under water by the end of this century due to the predicted 6 m rise in sea level. That will signal the end of Dublin, Belfast, Waterford and Cork, in addition to a number of other areas. Will the Taoiseach put in place contingency plans for that and will he radically address the change in policy the Government needs to make if we are to have any hope of survival in the years to come, as a country and a planet?

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