Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Climate change is the biggest challenge of our time and the greatest opportunity for us to switch to a more secure, sustainable and just economic model. However, our draft national climate mitigation plan is an unmitigated disaster. The head of the EPA says that the Government’s policy measures are failing. John FitzGerald, the head of the climate advisory group, says the plan lacks substance, detail and analysis. The environmental NGOs have given it an F rating and it is lucky not to have been given a G rating.

In terms of the European Union, we are now mentioned in the same breath as Poland. There are only two countries in the EU that will not meet their emission targets and we are one of them. There are only four countries which are not going to meet the renewable targets. This country, which has some of the richest renewable resources in the world, is unfortunately in that category and heading in the wrong direction. The Institute of International and European Affairs estimates that those failure could cost us between €3 billion and €6 billion over the next decade.

What do we have? We have a Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Naughten, who has the cheek to say the problem is that we were too ambitious. During the Green Party’s period in Government between 2008 and 2011, emissions fell by 15 %. Half of that drop was due to the economic downturn but the EPA recognised that the other half was because of political commitment in government to the issue at that time. The EPA projects that we are now facing a 15 % increase in emissions up to 2030. If we were to take this issue seriously and grab the opportunity, we would go in the opposite direction.

The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, was absent from the talks and had no interest whatsoever. The plan has many gaps where there should be transport initiatives.

The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine says to count agriculture out because that sector has nothing to do with it. This is part of the reason - and it is not just because there are thousands of acres of forestry burning in the west today - that we are turning this green island brown. This is not in the interests of farmers, landowners or foresters.

We do not have a single public transport project ready to go to tender. We cannot get a cycle lane built along the Liffey quays because of a lack of funding from the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and as a result of a lack of political support at council level. We cannot build a greenway to Galway; it could even go by that plant in Athenry that the Government can get built for Apple, which will be an innovative part of the new green economy because it will be 100% powered by renewable energy. The Danes are building a similar plant and while matters here are stuck in planning, they are actually going to commission that facility. Will the Taoiseach tell us what is going to change and what the Government is going to do differently? The lack of political ambition and lack of economic understanding in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is at the core of our failure. It is the Government's responsibility to stop this country going from green to brown and to start grasping the opportunity that is before us.

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