Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Indeed, I suspect many climate scientists who are looking with open eyes at what is happening are drawing the conclusion that a system that treats nature as free, one that bases itself on the exploitation of labour and of nature and treats damage to nature, in terms of both the biodiversity and climate crises, as an externality and something it does not have to care about is incompatible with the kind of change we need and the timeframe within which we need to have it to avoid absolute disaster.

I conclude with reference to what a proper climate action would look like. It would start with that recognition that capitalism is the problem. We must move out of and break radically with a system that prioritises profit and the growth of a certain sort that goes with that. I am referring to growth that does not add to people's quality of life. It would be an eco-socialist green new deal to transform people's lives for the better. It is not to make people's lives harder but to make them easier and better while also having a rapid transition to a zero-carbon economy in developed economies like Ireland by 2030. What that would mean is that instead of investing in more motorways we would invest in free, green and frequent public transport. People do not want to be sitting in cars in gridlock for hours every day. People would jump at the opportunity to be on quality, decent, free public transport on a daily basis and it would dramatically cut emissions. It would mean investing in a green jobs programme, retrofitting every building across the State, rewilding, rewetting our bogs, afforestation and renewable energy but investing also in care jobs and building a national health service, a national childcare service and improving our education service dramatically.

It would mean moving to a sustainable model of agriculture. The truth is our model of agriculture is built around the interests of big agribusiness and it drives a model based on intensive production of beef and dairy. Instead, we need an approach based on the principles of food sovereignty, we need diversification and we need to incentivise farmers to farm sustainably. We must guarantee them an income and ensure they are paid for the carbon sequestration activities they are engaged in. It would mean a four-day week without loss of pay, which frees up time for people. It improves the quality of people's lives dramatically and would reduce carbon usage. It would mean taking the key sectors of the economy out of the hands of the private corporations which run them for profit and which run the whole economy for profit, not caring about what happens to our environment. Instead we would plan in the interests of people and our planet.

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