Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Former President Mary Robinson has warned that world leaders have at best two decades to save the planet from the devastating impact of climate change. Her warning follows the latest UN report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC which it described as a final wake-up call. Mary Robinson has urged world governments to implement major shifts in environmental and climate policy. The UN report warns that current efforts to cut carbon emissions have fallen significantly short of what is needed. In a previous report published just before Christmas, the IPCC concluded that humankind is to blame for global warming and warned that the planet will see increasingly extreme weather events unless governments take strong action. That report, which is entitled Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis, stated that the past decade was the warmest on record and that much of this is down to the increase in the burning of fossil fuels. Foilsíodh an dara thuairisc inné and this tuairisc says that effects are already occurring on all continents and across all oceans.

We have seen it here. Mar is eol don Taoiseach, ag tús na bliana bhí neart stoirm againn ar fud na tíre. We know from our own experience, including that of the west and the south east, that businesses and family homes were flooded, roads were blocked and there was massive destruction. According to the Marine Institute, 230,000 farmed salmon were lost off the west Cork coast as a result of just one of nine storms to batter this island. Last year, unusually long periods of dry weather followed by periods of torrential rain left many farmers short of essential feed. The winter has been the wettest since records were first kept in 1866. I could give the Taoiseach more data. I am sure he is conversant with them. I visited King's Island in County Limerick and saw the devastation wreaked upon that small working class community and which has still to be rectified. We are now being told that extreme weather events will be more common and severe. Has the Government's climate change committee discussed the IPCC, the impact of climate change on agriculture and communities, the impact of the recent storms and their implications for the future?

The Government has yet to publish a full cost-benefit analysis to show how the State can benefit in terms of plans to generate electricity from renewable sources. There does not appear to be a comprehensive Government energy strategy that would encompass all the alternatives and renewable sources instead of focusing solely on wind power. There was to have been a Green Paper on this but it has not materialised so far. In light of these alarming UN reports and our own experience, when will the Government publish the Green Paper? I commend the thousands who turned out at the protest today against wind turbines and pylons.

I was there myself today at the protest. I note that the Sinn Féin Private Members' Bill introduced last week was not opposed by the Government. I encourage the Taoiseach not just to allow the Bill to pass to the next stage, but actually to act on it. Given what we now know and given the way the future is looking in terms of all of these climate reports, would it not be a good thing that this Bill be passed into law to allow for the most comprehensive strategy possible on energy? This is now essential.

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