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

We get a lot of rhetorical commitment from the Government to dealing with climate change but facts published recently by the EPA on what is actually happening on emissions suggest the rhetoric is not in any way matched by real action and that we are moving in the opposite direction to the one in which we need go if we are to address runaway climate change and prevent all the disastrous consequences, environmental and human, social and economic, that will result if we fail to do so urgently and radically.

The EPA figures are quite stark. Overall emissions are not down but up by 3.7%. Agriculture emissions are up by 1.5% and emissions from the transport sector are up by 4.2%. Emissions from the energy industry sector are up by 5.4% and emissions from the residential sector are up by 5.1%, while emissions from manufacturing combustion are up by 5.2%. Emissions from industrial processes are up by 10.2% and emissions from the waste sector are up by 13%. Under almost every heading, emissions are going up and are going in the wrong direction, making the likelihood of reaching the stated goal of reducing emissions by 80% by 2050 a virtual impossibility.

As Deputy Barry said, the reason the rhetoric does not match reality is the addiction of this Government and the European Union to neoliberal dogma and to a market economic system that only cares about profit. At every hand's turn, that addiction to neoliberal economic policy prevents us from taking the action we need to take to address climate change. Deputy Barry was absolutely right to mention public transport. There is no joined-up thinking on the matter and this week the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, spoke about outsourcing Bus Éireann routes. It is already happening in the case of Dublin Bus routes but what will happen if we privatise public transport? The companies will go for the profitable routes. They will close down the public service routes and are already doing it in my area, which seems to be one of the pilot areas for this nonsense of outsourcing and privatising public transport. They are slashing public service routes into areas they do not deem profitable. The No. 7 used to go through Sallynoggin but now it has been slashed by 50%. The No. 59, going up to Killiney village and into Mackintosh Park, has been cut because it is not profitable and we are now going to have the same thing on national bus routes. Profit is trumping the public service obligation of the public transport system and effectively sabotaging any serious attempt to encourage the use of public transport to reduce car use and carbon emissions. If public transport is to pay the role it can play in substantially reducing car use and CO2 emissions, we need massive subsidies to public transport. We need to radically reduce fares and to ramp up investment in public service, not-for-profit transport. Unfortunately, we are moving in the opposite direction.

The same can be said of housing and insulation. In Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council we pushed forward a motion to have passive building standards and we passed it but it was then overridden by the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, who has brought in special legislation to override decisions made by local authorities in order to suit property developers who believe such things make building houses unprofitable. We could have a massive, publicly-led insulation programme with passive building standards but this does not suit the private developers who already have control of the property market and to whom this Government wants to give even more control.

How many times have I spoken about forestry? It is an unbelievable fact that the State forestry company cannot carry out new afforestation because EU state aid rules mean they would not get the grants. The addiction to a private model for forestry and other sectors, and state aid rules against distorting the market, means the State forestry company which was set up to do afforestation cannot do it. It does replanting but not actual afforestation, meaning we have the lowest level of forest cover anywhere in Europe even though we have the best conditions, bar none, for growing trees. We have a completely profit-orientated forestry model with a single species that is not good for biodiversity and is not good for carbon sequestration. It is completely dominated by getting the highest profits from wood in the shortest possible period. Disgracefully, the State company is selling off much of its forest estate, piecemeal, to private investment funds.

I want to give a shout-out to Deputy Pringle's Bill, which calls for the NTMA to divest from fossil fuels. If it is serious about this issue, the Government will use its time to back this Bill so that it gets onto the Statute Book. Let the State lead from the front by divesting from fossil fuels and putting more money into research and public initiatives to develop renewable energy and seriously cut emissions. The Government will probably not do that, however, because it is addicted to profit.

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