Christopher O'Sullivan (Cork South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to share time with my party colleague, Deputy Cahill, because he represents the views of a rural, agricultural constituency, similar to my own, with a mixture of beef and dairy farming. There is fear out there. I appreciate that there are challenges. It is important for the Minister to hear what Deputy Cahill said about the willingness to change, reduce emissions and make everything more efficient. We must remember that for years successive Governments and the EU have incentivised the intensification of farming and the expansion of farming, so we cannot just pull that rug from under the feet of farmers. As Deputy Cahill said, we must work with rural communities. There are opportunities and I will come back to them later.

I wish to touch on the importance of the upcoming climate action plan and keeping the focus on reducing emissions. The IPCC report was published some weeks ago. At the time I said that what generally happens with such reports is that we are scared, shocked and horrified by their content but as the weeks go by, we forget them and take our eye off the ball. I know the Minister does not and that it is on his mind all the time, but as a society we do. The same happened when we saw the horrendous floods in New York, and the loss of life and devastation. We are reminded again of the effects of global warming, but then we forget. It is important that as a society we remember each day the importance of the target for the reduction in emissions and the impact of global warming. I know it is on the Minister's mind every day and that must be the attitude of the House as well.

There will be challenges and opportunities in different areas under the climate action plan. There will be challenges, for example, in rolling out public transport provision. We have already seen objections and we must get around that. There will be costs involved with good public transport. There will be a requirement for a change in culture in transport, in particular in rural areas where people are not used to having good quality public transport. However, there are also opportunities, for example, with the roll-out of electric vehicles. MetroLink was mentioned. Let us imagine the number of cars that will take off the road. There is also the light rail project and BusConnects, which are proving problematic, but such initiatives provide the answer to decarbonising public transport. In producing the climate action plan, I urge the Minister to bear in mind the great work that was done in the report of the Joint Committee on Climate Action on decarbonising transport.

The suggestions in that report are a key tool to decarbonising that sector.

When it comes to rural Ireland, I talked about the need for significant culture change and that can only be done if the alternative is provided. Within that document is the concept of every village, every hour. At the moment, where I am in west Cork, some villages and towns are lucky to have one public bus service per day and most villages have none. That needs to be flipped on its head and whether it takes funding from the Exchequer or incentives to make that happen, we need to make it happen if we are to see that cultural change, and see it at the rate of pace that we need.

We then have the energy challenge and the challenges and opportunities that come with that. What is going to happen in the interim until we see large-scale renewables come on board? We also have the challenge of data centres. While I would not have gone as far as Deputy Whitmore's Bill yesterday to put a moratorium on data centres, the debate on it acknowledged the fact they are providing major challenges because of their energy usage. If EirGrid's prediction of 28% of energy usage by 2030 is correct, then we have to step in and, at the very least, ensure there are mitigation measures. It also needs to be ensured that they use the large surface areas of their premises for water harvesting and for distributing excess energy, and that they give energy and electricity back into the grid. There will have to be conditions to ensure this is mitigated against.

There are also opportunities. I have spoken at length about floating offshore wind, in which the Minister is a big believer. It has the capacity to create 30,000 MW of energy and to produce 2.5% of Europe's energy needs. We need to keep an eye focused on that goal and not be distracted. There is also community solar. The legislation on the roll-out of solar in schools, for example, needs to be expedited and the red tape and bureaucracy around it needs to be reduced so that schools can provide their own energy on a fine day, and solar panel technology will allow people to run their own schools.

There are challenges, some of which Deputy Cahill has outlined, but there have to be opportunities as well. The science is evolving, whether it is around mixed species swards and the huge reduction in emissions through that technology, or protected urea. We need proper agri-environment schemes whereby we no longer penalise farmers for having a habitat and having areas of biodiversity on their land, but reward and incentivise them for that, and this will also have a carbon capture element with it as well.

On carbon budgets and our climate action plan, the next couple of weeks are some of the most important for climate change in this area. Let us remember why we are doing this. Global warming is happening at an alarming rate, there is mass migration internationally and we are in the middle of a mass extinction of species. Let us remember why we are doing this and not be distracted by opposition or industry. Let us focus on what we are doing.

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