Réada Cronin (Kildare North, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Second Stage reading of this Bill. It is not exactly what we had hoped for and worked for during pre-legislative scrutiny. We had hoped for and anticipated we would now have a climate Bill that would set out clear and ambitious targets and make the Government accountable for delivering on them. Can the Government be accountable when the recent High Court ruling on the Climate and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 found the Government was not a relevant body? That is less of a loophole and more of a gigantic hole. We in Sinn Féin have written to the Minister calling for it to be closed immediately.

Climate change is now inevitable; it is a fact. All we are trying to do in this legislation is lessen and make more bearable its effects on our children and grandchildren. By that, I mean future generations of the whole world. Young people are miles ahead of us, as adults and legislators. We really are the laggards in living up to the climate reality and our responsibilities. This week, we heard about the vanishing of the A-68a glacier in Antarctica not even four years since it broke away from the Larsen C ice shelf. It is the natural work of millennia reduced in relative moments. The young people in north Kildare know the choices we make matter across the world because we are all in this world together. With climate change, there is nowhere to hide; Earth is our only home.

Everything that has happened in human history has happened on this planet and we owe it to the generations who made us and to the generations we, as humanity, will become to do all in our power to protect it.

In that context, I am bitterly disappointed with the just transition aspect of the Bill. I assure my constituents in Kildare North, young and not so young, and the Fridays for Future groups who have been so active, particularly in my town of Maynooth, that we will do our utmost to change it. We went from having no mention of a just transition in the first draft to having one mere reference to it in the Bill before us, despite the recommendations of the Joint Committee on Climate Action. We have tried to change the language in the Bill in respect of a just transition. There are weasel-word terms such as "best endeavours", "as far as is practicable" and "have regard to". They are useless. There is just too much wriggle room. The meaning, however, is clear. The comfortable and privileged can transition, retrofitting their second homes without breaking a financial sweat, while the people barely hanging on can do it only insofar as is practicable. I ask the Minister for whom is it practicable. Sinn Féin will fight for a just transition and decarbonisation as a right for all, regardless of income. Scotland got it right in its climate Act. There is an entire section on just transition principles, that is, things to stand over, not like these kinds of weasel words. They are not enough. We need engagement with workers and communities to ensure we get the buy-in necessary to take this over the line.

I have other concerns. That the importation of fracked gas will continue after the passing of any climate Bill is ludicrous. It needs to be banned immediately by legislation before the Government tries to ratify the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA, or before any other sneakily timed licence applications are made. The Minister said he would bring in a ban on fracked gas and he needs to do it. Equally, the Government needs to get moving on reaching our targets without any more slouching around. Near-term ambition is vital. There is a significant shortfall of ambition compared with what was promised in the programme for Government.

As for reaching our interim targets as quickly as possible, we share the concerns of Professor John Sweeney, Dr. Andrew Jackson and Professor Barry McMullin in their letter to the Minister and his coalition partners. For amendment purposes, we are assessing the two options they outlined. Regarding the Climate Change Advisory Council, we welcome Ms Patricia King from the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, as a voice for workers, but I was taken aback that our recommendation arising from pre-legislative scrutiny that there be an open public appointments process was effectively ignored. The Minister might think he is getting away with it while he is in office and making the appointments, but if he is replaced by a Fianna Fáil or Fine Gael Minister, that could change. We quite simply have to have an open public appointments process.

Finally, yesterday's warning from the International Energy Agency on an historic increase in emissions in the first quarter of 2021 was dire. Any climate gains made during the pandemic have been trashed by the industrial addiction to coal internationally. As it stands, the Bill does not scream real, radical or urgent change, and it should. There is no reason for us not to do all we can in the Bill to fulfil our responsibilities. We must examine our addiction to the economic growth that capitalism demands and to the relentless pursuit of profit for the remarkably few. That is the real inconvenient truth.

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