Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

"[This] report is a code red for humanity. The alarm bells are deafening, and the evidence is irrefutable: greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel burning and deforestation are choking our planet and putting billions of people at immediate risk." These are the words of United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, at the launch of the IPCC report earlier this year.

Global carbon emissions fell 7% in 2020, the deepest cut since 1945. It was not hard to achieve that when the majority of planes were out of the sky for months on end and billions of cars were off the road. The real trend is shown by a different statistic. In December 2020, as compared with December 2019, to take the two one-month periods, global carbon emissions were up 2%. Instead of building back better, what is happening is the capitalist economies are restarting on the basis of big increases once again in carbon emissions. In fact, it is estimated that 2023 will be the highest year on record ever for carbon emissions.

The target from Paris is to cut carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Under the guidance of the big corporations and the governments they control, is the world heading for a 50% cut? No, it is not heading for a cut at all. In fact, on current projections, if it was to keep on the same track, it is heading for an increase of 16%.

We have had a debate on data centres in the past couple of days. Some 2% of electricity globally is eaten up by data centres, and in this State it is 11% and heading for 30%. The only point I will make about it, as we had the debate, is that the vote last night was very illustrative. It was an 82 to 61 vote, where all 12 Green Party Deputies trooped in to vote with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael to shoot down a proposal for a moratorium on data centres. Had they voted the other way, as I suspect everybody in the climate movement in this country would have wanted them to do, it would have been a 73 to 68 vote in favour of a moratorium. It is scandalous from the Green Party.

This Bill would ban new fossil fuel infrastructure. Part of the equation is the LNG project in Shannon and the LNG project at the plant in Inch, County Cork, for a floating storage regasification unit, which does not get much coverage and needs to be put out there. Both of these are being sponsored by big corporations. In Shannon, it is New Fortress Energy. There are legal cases there at the moment, but they are quite determined. They want to bring in fracked gas from Pennsylvania. Fracking releases large quantities of methane into the atmosphere. Experts from Cornell University in the United States reckon the amount of global warming per unit of fracked gas is 20% higher than is the case for coal. One of the activists in the local Safety Before LNG group, John McElligott, is on record as saying, "It seems that the door is constantly being kept open for Shannon LNG in spite of clear government policy to the contrary." This is unacceptable.

In Cork, the company that is trying to pioneer LNG is perhaps aptly named Predator Oil and Gas Holdings plc. It has met the Department and the regulator. It is looking for a non-fracked operation, but fossil fuel all the same. It reckons it can put it together within 18 months, with first deliveries in late 2023. That is its target, using the infrastructure of the Kinsale gas field.

The purpose of this Bill is stop projects like that and knock them on the head. If we do not win support in the House tonight for that, I make no apologies for saying it is my earnest wish and desire that a mass, popular, democratic campaign will stop those projects by means of people power and direct action.

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