Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

We all have to acknowledge the magnificent efforts by local communities and environmental groups to tackle the problems relating to biodiversity and nature. The situation is dire, however, and last year's report showed just how dire. Some 50% of fresh waters are polluted, 90% of protected habitats are classified as being of an unfavourable status and of the 3,000 or so plant and animal species in Ireland that were studied, approximately one quarter are facing extinction. One third of bees could be extinct by 2030 and our butterfly population has declined by 12% over the past decade. We know from the UN report that, globally, this is the biggest ever decline in history. More than 500,000 species on land have insufficient habitat for long-term survival and are likely to become extinct within decades.

I say all this because I am listening to the Minister's plans for action and her comments on the studies and reports that are promised, but none of them can mask the truth. The truth is that at the heart of the policies of the Government which, supported by Fianna Fáil, has been in office in recent years and at the heart of the new programme for Government, which has been given a greenwash, there is a pretence about what causes biodiversity loss and climate change. That pretence may be masked by using the right language, ticking the right boxes, making all the right noises and applauding the climate activists, the school's students and the local communities who try to tackle biodiversity loss, but, at the end of the day, it is essentially business as usual. We will continue with economic growth built around foreign direct investment, a low-tax and light-touch regulatory regime, and Ireland Incorporated as a tax haven for weary multinationals who are looking for a place to rest.

The Green element in the new Government will talk very earnestly about the climate crisis, biodiversity loss and what we all must do, but I know that, in five years' time, this programme, just like the programme of the outgoing Government, will not have delivered on climate change, biodiversity or building a sustainable society. It will not do it because it ignores the real causes and, instead, tweaks and pretends that it is dealing with this and delivering a solution.

The biggest driver of biodiversity loss in the world is growth - not just economic growth, but economic growth predicated on increasing profits, the drive to create new markets and the ever-increasing abuse of resources and materials from nature. The National Parks and Wildlife Service's recent report identified the causes of the loss of biodiversity in Ireland and stated that the factors contributing to the declines include agriculture, forestry and aquaculture, and the ambitious growth targets set for these sectors by the Food Wise 2025 strategy. The new programme for Government, while ticking all those boxes, cannot really deliver because it does the same as Food Wise 2025 in that is based on the search for new markets and new growth, the very basis of biodiversity loss here and across the globe.

The reason we have immiserated farmers and rural communities is an incessant need for growth, profits and increased output that only serves those at the top of the corporate chain. Whether it is in beef production, dairy herds or cereal production, it has not served farmers or consumers, or, indeed, nature. We know from the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Creed, that he is pretending that methane emissions can be looked at differently and that, somehow, his Department will find ways of calculating methane problems and find a new way of creating the figures. The fact that methane is 84 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat can be conveniently ignored. As climate scientist Kevin Anderson has said, we can fool ourselves but we cannot fool science and we cannot fool nature.

That equally applies to the fossil fuel industry. We now pretend we have ended oil extraction but the licences that exist are good until 2035. The pretence that we are now banning the use of liquefied natural gas is also a lie because, although we are banning the importation of fracked gas, we continue to allow the importation of other forms of liquefied natural gas. Just as this Government and the future greenwashed Government will not challenge the power and the dominance of agribusiness and those who pollute the planet, it will not challenge the power of the fossil fuel industry.

I want to conclude by appealing to those who are pouring the greenwash over this new programme for Government not to do this. I appeal to the climate campaigners who came out in their tens of thousands on the question of biodiversity, nature and the future of the planet to look to that movement, bring it back out onto the streets and look to a radical transformation of society, not one that is poured full of greenwash.

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