Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

On Monday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, issued a stark and frightening report on humanity's impact on the world around us. The day after the report was published, the Government did a U-turn on carbon tax. Carbon tax is not the be-all and end-all of climate action and it needs to be balanced with supports to stop fuel poverty. This move showed exactly where the Government's priorities lie. As Professor John FitzGerald has said, carbon pricing alone will not deliver the necessary emission reductions but delivering emission reductions without a sufficient carbon price will almost be impossible and much more expensive. The Government has a Minister with responsibility for climate action who did not even seek an increase in the carbon tax in the budget. He should resign on that issue alone and that is before we get into the issues of the impropriety of his dining habits.

The Government has a national development plan, NDP, which has not been climate-proofed. At meetings of the Joint Committee on Climate Action, three Secretaries General have looked like deer in the headlights when asked how we will close the 100 million tonne emissions gap. The Government has a transport plan that is all roads, roads and more roads. The NDP provides for more than 60 motorways or national road projects. There is not a single major public transport project in construction today. With the exception of the Royal Canal greenway, there is not a single cycling project in construction today. The Government keeps pushing public transport projects into the future. It delayed metro north by a decade. The DART Interconnector is in the plan for after 2027, if at all, and the Navan railway line, which was ready to go, is also on the long finger for at least another decade. What is the public transport plan for the Tánaiste's city of Cork? The Government's tokenistic actions on climate and environment have been woeful. Last month, Fine Gael launched its very own green week. The irony of having a single green week where the party deflected its own shameful lack of real action on climate issues onto the people seems to have been totally lost on Fine Gael. The Taoiseach highlights the benefits of switching to a reusable coffee cup while, at the same time, the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment continues to block the Green Party's Waste Reduction Bill.

The Government has opposed our Bill and the Labour Party Bill to ban microbeads, has opposed Deputy Bríd Smith's climate emergency Bill, and has continually declared that Ireland is open for business when it comes to fossil fuel extraction. At the end of the day, on the international stage, Ireland is the second worst performer in the EU on climate change. We are bottom of the class.

The Ministers assure us we will have massive reductions in our emissions by 2030 but no one can see that. The Committee on Climate Action says we are completely off course, and the Environmental Protection Agency predicts our emissions in 2035 will be higher than they are today, yet we are presented with a national development plan with no idea of climate impact. Does the Government accept that the national development plan is not fit for purpose? It is not climate-proofed, it is not real climate action and it needs to change.

See this speech in context