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

I have made the historical point once before and it is always a point that strikes me very forcefully, so I will make it again as I think it very relevant to the debate about climate change and the future capacity of our society to sustain itself. The historical point is this. The reason the great civilisations of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, which were the first great civilisations created by human beings, collapsed was that the people who ran those civilisations failed to invest in and sustain the infrastructure and basis on which those civilisations had arisen. Great advances in technology, in industry and in knowledge which had led to the development of those societies were completely undermined by the myopia and blindness of the people who ran them, who started to use that wealth and resources, not to sustain their civilisation, but essentially to aggrandise themselves. This is symbolised in things like pyramids, where the massive pyramids built were of no use to the society but were just monuments to the power and self-importance of the rulers and Pharaohs. Similar things were done in ancient Mesopotamia. This was instead of investing in infrastructure, both human and physical, and the means through which those societies sustained themselves.

In those days, it was the question of irrigated canal systems around the great rivers which allowed those societies to rise. That same scenario is now playing out in the world where, literally, the basis of our civilisation is being undermined by the myopia and blindness of the people at the top.

They have the technological, industrial and intellectual capacity to sustain our civilisation and help it progress and develop in the interests of the whole of humanity, but they fail to do that and instead use all the wealth and resources to aggrandise themselves, spending on wasteful, damaging and dangerous things that threaten to undermine the basis of society. That is what is going on.

We look at the terrifying displacement of millions of people in parts of the world because of what the western world has done in those places and think it is bad now, but we have yet to see the impact of runaway climate change. It is already a major contributory factor to displacement of millions of people in these areas, but displacement will get out of control if we do not take action now. The scenes we have seen in the past few weeks will be as nothing. They will pale into insignificance compared to what is coming down the line unless we deal with this matter. Countries like Ireland, with its reputation as a green country, are deeply implicated by failing to act on this matter which is having a devastating effect in the developing world. Our CO2 emissions are 80 times greater than countries like Malawi, but these countries are suffering the devastating consequences of what we have done and are doing to the environment. Despite this and the consequences being wreaked on these countries, we still think in our narrow self-serving way that we should not do anything that might impact adversely on our short-term, narrow self interest.

As Deputy Stanley pointed out, it is not in our self interest. In the whole of Europe, Ireland is one of the countries set to be worst hit by rising sea levels. This will be a mammoth cost to the State. We have already seen the impact of flooding, but the costs we have seen to date will be as nothing compared to the cost that will affect us in the coming years if we do not do something about it now. Yet, the Government sets its face against doing anything concrete. It must be seen to do something, so we get a Bill full of vague, meaningless aspirations but with nothing we can be tied to, nothing that will cost us anything. As Deputy Clare Daly rightly said, this is linked to austerity. Ultimately, our inability to invest in the sort of long-term measures necessary to deal with this is the flip side of the coin of paying out €8 billion in interest to the bankers and the bondholders - modern pharaohs in historic terms. They are the modern version of the pharaohs who dug the grave of ancient civilization. The same gang is doing it for our civilization, while we are on our bended knees obeying their every command and refusing to take any action in a range of areas.

Climate change is one of the most important issues, this global question of whether our planet can sustain food production and prevent massive flooding that will put significant parts of the globe under water, including parts of this country. Parts of our country will be devastated, as we have seen from river flooding already. Yet, the Government has set its face against change and seems uninterested. It wants to be able to say it passed the Bill, but it is not really interested.

Earlier I gave an example of this lack of interest that drives me mad. When I proposed specific amendments to the Forestry Bill when it was going through the House, proposing annual targets for greater levels of afforestation, the Government's answer was "No". It was not interested. A shocking fact that many people in this country are unaware of is that the State forestry company, Coillte, is not allowed engage in afforestation, because of EU rules. That is madness, yet nobody is raising it as an issue. We are talking about dealing with climate change, but the State forestry company which was set up to plant trees is prohibited from planting them by EU state aid rules. It is madness but the Government does not want to do anything about it. Instead, we continually submit to the people who inflict this madness on us or to those whose economic interests or personal or corporate wealth is dependent on us doing nothing. We act as their lickspittles and servants.

The culmination of this is a Bill that will do nothing and in four, five, ten or 15 years time, when the crisis has got worse, the Government of the day will blame the previous lot, who are then all retired, and say it is their fault. That Government will then say it will do something and will come up with another plan that will be long on aspiration and short on detail and the same process will continue. It is time to stop this nonsense and be specific and that is what this amendment is about. Be specific and be tied to targets. Any government can be measured against specific projections on CO2 emissions and targets to assess whether it is serious. If we did this now, we would discover very quickly that we are not serious at present.

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