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

Are the figures from the EPA on our CO2 emissions not yet another damning indictment of the failure of this Government to take the issue of climate change seriously? Some 5 million tonnes of CO2 have been emitted above the required targets and this is the third year in a row that we have missed them. From the point of view of the public, crucially, we are now facing fines amounting to hundreds of millions of euro. That is money that could be spent on housing, health, education and actual climate measures. The Government is intending to make ordinary people pay for its policy failures on climate change with a punitive and regressive carbon tax. Even the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, stated that it is regressive. It will hit the poor and the less well off. The carbon tax has been in place for some years but has done nothing to reduce our carbon emissions.

Do these figures not demonstrate that the Government is guilty of rampant climate hypocrisy? It has blocked Deputy Bríd Smith's Bill to keep fossil fuels in the ground, which was the central demand of the secondary school students who were on the streets seeking climate action. This week, the Government proposed to the EU that a liquid natural gas, LNG, terminal be built at Shannon to import, for decades to come, poisonous, toxic fracked gas from the United States. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, this week refused to take action against the beef barons on the issue of feedlots, which are the major culprit when it comes to emissions in agriculture. He also refused to act against the dairy barons while the poor small farmers, meanwhile, who are not guilty of climate sabotage, are being thrown under the bus with the Mercosur deal. That deal was agreed with the Brazilian president, Bolsonaro, who is burning down the rain forests that produce our oxygen and flooding Europe with cheap beef at the expense of small farmers. The Government is also allowing bus fares to increase, and they will increase further following the carbon tax increase, which it should be encouraging people to use public transport but this Government is privatising it. It also consistently fails to meet afforestation targets.

Why does the Government not listen to our proposals? We have been relentless in proposing to keep fossil fuels in the ground, stop the LNG terminal at Shannon bringing in fracked gas, get rid of fares on public transport and add 1,000 more buses to the national fleet to improve our public transport system. There should also be better grants to make it affordable for people to insulate their homes and enable them to reduce their energy usage and energy bills. Grants for small farmers should also be dramatically increased so that they can move away from environmentally-damaging agricultural activities and into afforestation. We have asked the Government to do these things repeatedly. All it wants to do, however, is tax ordinary people for its failure. Is that not climate hypocrisy and climate failure?

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