Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

This Bill is really quite pathetically weak in dealing with the most serious of crises, the climate crisis, and all the dangers it poses nationally and globally. It is largely an exercise in lip service that is fairly typical of how the Government deals with many serious matters. There is much high-flown rhetoric and aspiration and many promises but, on burrowing into the detail, one realises there is very little in the way of specifics. This is fairly typical of how the Government seems to have been doing its business over recent years. With a matter as serious as climate change, paying lip service is just not good enough. It is grossly irresponsible if we are to secure the future of this country, its citizens and the wider environment and if we are to meet our responsibilities regarding others around the world.

As has been stated, Ireland has one of the highest per capitaemissions rates in Europe. It is ranked fourth highest. The potential cost to Ireland of runaway climate change is more severe than for most countries in Europe. The Joint Research Centre's recent report on climate impacts in Europe details the enormous costs already incurred in Ireland owing to events such as flooding. Some €750 million has been paid out by insurers since 2000. This indicates, based on the current trajectory, that the costs, which are really quite astronomical right across Europe, are set to increase massively. The cost of addressing sea flooding in Britain and Ireland is predicted to increase from €996 million to €3 billion over the next few years. Already, the direct economic cost of the damage from flooding across Europe is €5 billion. It is expected to be €11 billion in future years. The report states Ireland and Britain will be the worst affected, obviously because they are islands on the west of Europe and have particular climatic conditions.

We are likely to reap the whirlwind. We have already seen this with the cost of flood damage to the State and its impact on agriculture. We are likely to reap a far more damaging and literal whirlwind in the coming years if we do not do something about climate change or at least play our part in doing something about it and reducing carbon emissions in a serious way. This Bill does not achieve this. As other speakers have implied, when one examines the impact of climate change in other parts of the world, one notes the quite terrifying consequences for health and the forced migration, enormous costs and deaths. The World Health Organization suggests 250,000 extra people will die around the world by 2030 as a result of conditions related to climate change, such as heat exposure, diarrhoea, malaria and childhood nutrition. These are already some of the biggest killers among some of the poorest people in the world. Consider the enormous cost of the adaptation of coastal zones in places such as the Philippines, where it is expected to be €5 billion per year by 2020, as a result of the impact of climate change.

Ireland, as an island nation in Europe, is set to start to suffer. We will incur costs and experience damage to the extent I have described unless we do something very seriously to address climate change. Against this background and given the mortal threat that climate change poses to Ireland, its citizens, the world and the future generations to whom we have a responsibility, this Bill is absolutely pathetic and an exercise in lip service. The reasons for saying this have been well set out in the documents produced by a range of environmental organisations already alluded to in this debate. The reasons include the failure to include targets and a definition of a low-carbon economy, the failure to ensure the climate advisory council is fully independent of State-owned stakeholder interests, the fact that the Bill does not provide for climate justice and allude to our responsibility to those in poor parts of the world, and the fact that the timeframe for the national mitigation plans has been pushed out to two years although the heads of the Bill initially stated 12 months and although environmental organisations say that, given the urgency, it should be six months, not two years. The Bill is just kicking the can down the road, to use that awful phrase. It is an indication of not taking the matter seriously.

The national mitigation plan the Government is proposing does not have to set out figures on national emissions, nor does it include a reference to soil carbon management. With regard to the process for adopting the plans, although the Government has made much reference to the need for cross-party, cross-Oireachtas consensus and wider buy-in to this process, the plans can actually be adopted by the Government without being brought before the Houses of the Oireachtas to be debated and decided upon. The environmental organisations talk about the need for a provision requiring the Taoiseach, as the senior member of the climate change sub-committee, to come to the House to make statements annually on the progress we are making on reducing carbon emissions. Even that level of accountability and specificity in terms of marking our progress is not included.

Deputy O'Dowd said it is all very well to make these criticisms but that we must outline the alternatives. We agree. We have to have sustainable energy production but the problem is the way the Government is approaching it. To cut a long story short, the corporatised, industrialised capitalist approach to developing energy is the problem. If we are to deal with this issue and begin to understand the threat it poses to the world, there must be joined-up thinking and a break from a model of dealing with this that is all about corporate profit and a big industrialised approach. This is why the Government has got into so much trouble over wind turbines in the midlands.

It became far less about developing, or even any interest in, sustainable energy than about the private interests, some of which had connections with political parties in this House, making a fortune out of wind energy with no consideration for the local community and no real serious examination of the environmental benefit of these schemes which must be seriously questioned.

As for the alternatives, one suggestion I would make to the Minister is that at every level we must go more local. We need energy co-operatives in every town and village. That will not solve all of the problems but will go a long way. If the Minister wants buy-in, he should get local communities involved and release their energy and the resources that are around them, and let them develop energy co-operatives at local level that will look at a sustainable mix of energy sources which can be generated at a local level. These sources would be a mix of small-scale wind, small-scale hydroelectric, district heating systems and biomass using public lands. Of course, this would include the serious pursuit of retrofit and insulation and providing real incentive schemes to get that sort of thing done. We are not doing that because, essentially, our approach is all about handing it over to the private sector.

In my last seconds, I want to say, "Trees, trees, trees, trees, trees." It is unbelievable that the State forestry company is precluded by EU rules from meeting our afforestation targets, which are now merely a joke. We need to plant trees. Ireland is favourably suited to do so. We must plant trees because at every level they will help meet our targets, create jobs and help produce sustainable energy.

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