Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

The response of the Government to the Bill is shocking. In its presentation the Government said that in 32 years' time - a generation away - in the year 2050, Ireland might be able to reduce its emissions by 80%. This is not even true. In the past month, the Climate Change Advisory Council has stated that the Government will miss the 2020 targets. Professor John FitzGerald of that council has pointed to the high dependency on oil, coal and peat as being the primary reason. The Government can announce very noble things and very positive and important initiatives like sustainable energy projects and electric vehicles but the Bill and the reduction in fossil fuel consumption is actually critical to meeting those emissions targets. The Government has no answer and no solution. The aspects that do get talked about, such as resources to stimulate the take-up of sustainable energy are all private so we have no control. It is not even a Government-led project, which at least would be a bit more serious, but it is reliant on the private sector to do it.

I am not really surprised at the Government's response because reference has already been made to lagging behind. For 20 years the Government has sat and taken advice from the likes of Conor Skehan who, as a climate change denier, advised Fine Gael right up until the period when Phil Hogan was the Minister. It seems it is only in the last couple of years that Fine Gael has accepted the idea there is a climate change problem. Mr. Skehan's attitudes on homelessness and the environment are very similar; they are ill-informed and ignorant. At one point, an architect was drawing diagrams trying to disprove expert climatologists and was saying there was no problems with polar bears as that was all the fault of local tribes. This is the rubbish and dross to which the Government has been listening. It really needs to catch up and take this issue seriously. The Public Gallery is full of younger people tonight because this is a serious issue for young people and they take it a lot more seriously than does the establishment.

The first thing the Bill says is that it is an emergency and that the effects of climate change are being felt around the world right now. We need to implement radical policies in how our society operates. The one degree rise in global temperatures over the last number of years has led to a sharp increase in extreme weather events. We see it in Ireland also. It is often the poorest who are hit the hardest. While it is all very romantic to listen to Deputy Healy-Rae, and we all love a log fire, this is a serious issue where massive areas of the planet are becoming uninhabitable and where up to 25 million people are being displaced. If we keep going, this number will rise dramatically in the next years.

The current rate of CO2 pollution in the atmosphere has increased to a level not seen in 3 million years. We therefore have to dispense with some traditions that were not good traditions. That is the reality. It is also wrecking nature and the ecosystems with irreversible damage done to some of the most beautiful things on our planet. Scientists agree that we are in the process of a sixth mass extinction of animals and wildlife; a biological annihilation. The Bill argues that it cannot be left to big business and the private sector to voluntarily agree that at some stage in the future, they will tackle climate change. They will put their profits first. This is why we on the left have put forward an alternative to capitalism destroying the environment. There are 90 major companies that have created 63% of the cumulative emissions. These are the companies this Bill targets. They will not simply leave fossil fuels and profits in the ground. We need a completely different type of society to successfully stop climate change. We need to challenge the rule of the 1% who control these companies and the big businesses who are the major polluters so we can take control of our resources and our planet. Then we can invest the billions of euro needed to really transition from a carbon-based economy to a green economy.

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