Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

I welcome the opportunity speak on this important topic. I returned only last night from a meeting of Socialist International in Athens which was attended by 700 delegates from 170 countries. Socialist International has decided to make climate change its principal topic of discussion. The forum will discuss the challenge of the new structure of the global economy, issues of conflict and peace and migration, all of which are inter-related.

It is important we do not make a descriptive gesture in regard to the challenge we face. Socialist International decided, for example, to provide a slot for a presentation by Professor Rifkin. It is clear and obvious that we have at most ten or 15 years in which to deal with the crisis we face. It is also the case that all of the scientific estimations of the crisis have been off target in so far as that which was predicted to happen has happened at a faster rate and is happening already.

As I listened to Professor Rifkin, I was struck by the fact we are talking about a planetary impact that goes back beyond human life, which is approximately 175,000 years; that we are talking about millions of years in which the planet was unable to sustain any life and almost about a species crisis. For this reason, I reject entirely the suggestion that one could in any sense see in the melting of the northern ice cap anything other than the disaster that it is for all forms of life. Also, one can trace in the history of science precisely what the species impact would be. This is not to make a deep ecological argument in the North American sense but to acknowledge, in terms of the scale of the crisis, that we have ten or 15 years to address this given scientific projections have proven insufficient.

I will move on to what I believe is the human side of this issue. We are talking about an inter-linked set of crises. Closely related to the climate change crisis is the food production crisis which in turn relates to the energy crisis which in turn relates to issues of political instability. For example, Dan Smith in his book Climate Change and Conflict makes the point, in regard to countries producing fossil fuels, that there exists countries within which there are what might be called "weaknesses" in the political and social infrastructures: that there is a serious risk of armed conflict in approximately 46 of these countries and a risk for serious political instability in another 56 countries. One is, therefore, talking about the climate change crisis, the food production crisis, the energy crisis and the instability that flows from fossil fuel producing regions. Another crisis not sufficiently recognised is the disastrous crisis in intellectual and economic thinking. The reduction in the influence of the State and respect for international institutions introduced in the Thatcher-Reagan era and the release of what might have been regarded as a single neo-liberal model of development that came from the Chicago school under the tutorage of Professor Milton Friedman, has been a disaster in every sense in terms of its idea of what one might call non-inflationary consistent economic growth and a single model to be spread all over the world.

I have only a few minutes to raise what we might do. I accept issues arise in regard to mitigation. It is irresponsible to suggest we can deal with this crisis by not changing our way of life. That requires public education. A question also arises in respect of adaptation in respect of new forms of life, the economy and society and so on. The Government is challenged to state why it is not valorising public transport rather than its roads programme. One cannot be taken seriously if one makes the slightest cut in public transport when one should be driving it on.

On technology transfer, I listened to the spokesperson from India ask if he was to tell the expanding population of India to do without electricity. He asked if the technology used for changing to a new carbon free type society, one which would result in a better connection between economy and society, could be transferred to those countries with population pressure. This requires institutional change of the character of the Bretton Woods institutions, the IMF and World Bank following the Second World War. We need a new council for sustainable development and capital transfers that would report to the Secretary General.

Many issues have been thrown up for discussion, many of which relate to inter-generational justice. This is a difficult area for parliamentarians elected for a five-year period or for members of parties founded a generation or two ago to address. The idea that one should not take actions that in their own sense or cumulatively have an irreversible effect or an inter-generational effect challenges us to invite ourselves to a new type of inter-generational jurisprudence. I very much contribute to that.

I will turn to the issue of the new relationship. People piously say this will require a contract between the developed and the developing world. How would that happen? I have mentioned already that technology must be transferred to places such as India and Pakistan, but it is not. In addition, if we were, for example, to put a tax on carbon emission activity, the results of that should be transferred to the developing world to enable its people to develop new, responsible forms of production.

There is also good news, which is that every euro invested in cleaner industry and so on has a multiplier effect on the economy that is four to five times that of fossil fuels. This has been scientifically shown. There are better jobs, cleaner industries, better social forms and more responsible forms of economy, but they require a mental shift. I am glad this environmental consideration is lodged in the minds of all parties. However, I have a point to make about our seeking to create a new contract between the developed and the developing world. We cannot go on as we are in some parts of the developed world. We must also realise, in structuring our response, whether we are looking at mitigation, adaptation or technology transfer, and the new institutional forms of which I speak, that certain groups are making the greatest contributions to the problem, such as the United States. In addition, there must be a proportionate response because some of the countries of which we are making demands do not have the capacity to make the response we ask of them. They need technology transfer, as I mentioned, and they need funding. They also have the right to development. For example, in the case of India, are we to say that hundreds of millions of people must bend their backs without electricity?

Professor Rifkin has made some positive proposals which are very interesting. He talks about the third industrial revolution and proposes that we look at the question and consider that our strategy can in fact be based on renewables. We can go so far with that. It could also take into account hydrogen-based development, carbon storage and so on. What is most important, however — this will be the hardest part for people to accept — is that the new liberal model, which has driven irresponsible growth and suggested that the process of change and transition on the planet had to be from one model, has been a disaster. We are not requiring people to drive everything back, but we must recognise that we no longer have two decades to reverse the intergenerational changes that are taking place. We have a decade and a half. These changes are so strong that they threaten the species. We are talking not just about the human species, which emerged over 175,000 years slowly and with many progressions, but about forms of life that themselves emerged in a cosmic sense. It is nonsense to suggest that we can somehow decide to live with the melting of the polar ice caps, develop tourism and explore for fossil fuels. Let us stop the madness before it is too late.

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