Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The Oireachtas committee recommended that the legislation incorporate the principle of climate justice. The Minister has accepted that in a part of the legislation, namely, in amendment No. 17. We believe it is critical that the principle be inserted so Ministers will have to have regard to it when designing mitigation plans.

According to Naomi Klein, climate justice really means all developing countries are owed a debt for the inherent injustice of climate change and the fact that wealthy countries had used up most of the atmospheric capacity for safely absorbing carbon dioxide before the developing countries had a chance to industrialise. It is unfair to expect developing countries, whose people have contributed so little to the climate crisis, to shoulder the economic burden of climate change mitigation. However, if we are saying that and putting the principle into the Bill, we have to mean it. The plan must support policies that will deliver on the principle. That is where we have a bit of a problem. Let us step back and consider this: the countries that have been powering their economies with fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution have done far more to cause temperatures to rise than those that arrived on the globalisation stage in the past couple of decades. Therefore, it is not a level playing field. Developed countries, which represent less than 20% of the world's population, have emitted almost 70% of all greenhouse gas pollution, which is destabilising the climate.

Where do we fit in? Ireland is the second worst polluter per capitain Europe after Poland. Therefore, we in Ireland owe a debt to the developing countries. I am glad the Minister is sharing that view to the extent of saying we should build it in as a principle of our climate change Bill. However, if nothing else in the Bill is moving us nearer to that objective, it is just meaningless and actually a bit of an insult. It is a question of determining how to make the aspiration principle a reality in living terms. How will we repay this debt, which has now been acknowledged? We really need to consider how we can promote the principle of climate justice. That is really what we need to consider. Fighting the extractionism of the fossil fuel industry is a way to achieve it but we are not doing it. Fighting the new free-trade deals, such as the TPP and TTIP, which are effectively corporate wish lists that will have a devastating impact on the environment, particularly in countries in the developing world, is an approach. So, too, is reining in our over-consumption, which does not mean targeting everybody who drives a car but actually means promoting localisation of our economies, promoting serious policies on delivering public transport and greatly enhancing rail transport. I am not referring to the sort of metro-light Ladybird version that the Government announces in fanfares a hundred times over, but to real development of public transport, including rail, beyond anything we have seen already. We need to consider that. It is not being built into the legislation.

Naomi Klein has rephrased and remoulded the discussion on climate change, which is often put outside the reach of ordinary people. It is often packaged in terms of blaming individuals for their behaviour rather than examining how society itself is organised and what governments can do. Ms Klein states:

As a direct result of these centuries of serial thefts — of land, labor, and atmospheric space — developing countries today are squeezed between the impacts of global warming, made worse by persistent poverty, and by their need to alleviate that poverty, which, in the current economic system, can be done most cheaply and easily by burning a great deal more carbon, dramatically worsening the climate crisis. They cannot break this deadlock without help, and that help can only come from those countries and corporations that grew wealthy, in large part, as a result of those illegitimate appropriations.

[This argument] does not rest on ethics and morality alone: wealthy countries do not just need to help the Global South move to a low-emissions economic path because it's the right thing to do. We need to do it because our collective survival depends on it.

When we talk about climate justice, we need to do so in terms of the bigger picture. That is why I would support initiatives such as the Leap Manifesto, put forward in respect of Canada. That document examines the issue in terms of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's recognition of the shocking details of the violence of Canada's near past. The document refers to deepening poverty and inequality contributing to the problems of climate change. Solutions are sought in terms of what the government can do and in terms of the bigger picture and giving communities control over their destinies, be it in terms of energy projects, energy-efficient programmes or the retrofitting of houses. All these initiatives can generate employment, but on a serious scale. I refer also to proper public transport.

While we believe we should include the principle of climate justice in various parts of the Bill — it is a good thing and we are glad the Minister has included it in part — it will not mean anything unless it is backed up with meat and substance. Unfortunately, nothing in the Bill achieves this. When this Bill is passed, we will be three or four years away from fines being imposed on us. The European Union itself has said we have no chance of reaching the targets we have signed up to. Therefore, the taxpayer will inevitably be squeezed for the money because of the lack of action of the Government.

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