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

The truth hurts.

The Government overrides proper building standards when it comes to passive house standards and insulation because it would upset the developers. This is the reason. The Government has special pleading on Ireland's CO2 targets and we have no chance, according to anybody looking at it seriously, of reaching the targets necessary to meet our Paris commitment. The Government will not do it because it wants to protect the beef barons. It is as simple as that. The beef barons come first. Short-term profit of a particular group of people comes first. Here is exactly the same thing. It is all about profit. We will sell the future regardless of the consequences because we do not want to stand up to the vested interests.

This is particularly important when we consider what is happening in the United States at present, with the election of Donald Trump. We now have a President who is putting people in key positions in his Administration who are actively out to sabotage the movement to deal with climate change. It is literally giving two fingers to the battle to do something about climate change, deliberate no doubt on Trump's part, to appoint Rex Tillerson, the former CEO of ExxonMobil, one of the biggest, if not the biggest, offender in the whole area of CO2 emissions, and in which ISIF has significant investments. It is one of four big culprits in which we have invested through ISIF. Scott Pruitt has already been mentioned with regard to the EPA. These people are declaring war on the environment in the interests of profit. At this moment it is critical that we stand up and push in the other direction and show publicly we will fight to do something about climate change.

The Government states it will cost. Does the Minister of State not get it? We must deal with climate change, and even the Paris Agreement does not go half-way near. Most scientists now state even if we manage to meet the Paris commitments, and we probably will not because even the Irish Government is making special pleadings on those commitments, we will not deal with the problem. Some scientists now state we could be looking at an increase in temperatures of up to 7% within this century. If we think about the fact the ice age was caused by a 5% drop in temperature, think about the ice age in reverse. Life was extinguished during the ice age in huge parts of the globe because it was too cold. Think about huge parts of the globe literally being boiled alive, making parts of the planet uninhabitable and the desperate dire consequences for millions of people and our children. This is what I call a cost. It is a real cost. It is a cost which our children and grandchildren will suffer, but the Government protects on a short-term basis the profits and interest of people who do not care about this but want to make money in the here and now, regardless of the consequences for the future.

This is an absolute no-brainer, a small thing. If he is not willing to support it, as he has clearly indicated is the case, it is all hypocrisy. The stuff about commitments to climate change is all hypocrisy.

Since Trump has been elected there has been an interesting narrative that tries to compare the populist right, represented by Trump, and the left who are apparently similar, with the moderate, sensible, pragmatic centre which is apparently the guys in Government. When it comes to practicalities, they are with Trump. They say it in a nicer way but they are actually with Trump and the climate deniers. They are with the business interests that do not want to do anything to save this planet. That hypocrisy cannot stand but they will be beaten on this one.

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