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

I will focus my remarks on COP26 and the coup in Sudan.

The Taoiseach’s doublespeak on methane is precisely the kind of blah, blah, blah, that Greta Thunberg was warning about. Yesterday he signed up to a global target of 30% reductions in methane by 2030, the absolute minimum necessary, and today he says that Ireland will not even try to meet that target, by setting a 10% target instead. The Taoiseach and the Government, it seems, are fully committed to other states tackling climate change. Fair play. I wonder do the Taoiseach and his Ministers adopt a similar approach to new year’s resolutions pledging that his neighbours will take up jogging, his barber will quit smoking, and that his friends will reduce the amount they drink. Ireland talking about climate change but refusing to tackle methane is like Saudi Arabia signing up to the global targets but saying that it will not do anything in respect of oil production. It is useless spin: blah, blah, blah. To tackle climate change in this country, we need to stand up to the beef barons, to the Larry Goodmans of this world and to big agribusiness. We need to take them into public ownership so that we can plan the nature of our agriculture and incentivise a shift by small farmers, with an increase in their income, to sustainable farming, in order to pay them for carbon sequestration and ecosystem services. This is to guarantee everybody a decent quality of living.

I also want to take up the question of capitalism. Interestingly, it was a focal point of the Taoiseach’s remarks earlier today on COP26. During Leaders’ Questions he went as far as to say that in his opinion Ireland is not a capitalist state. This is reminiscent, perhaps, of the time he said that we did not bail out any banks. I am not sure what else that is if it is not capitalism.

This is interesting, however, because it reflects a growing fear on the part of the establishment that workers and young people looking at the crisis of climate and the catastrophe that we are heading into are open to the conclusion that the system change we need is a change from the capitalist system. That is not just about activists on the ground. For example, the newly leaked second draft report from the IPCC states that we must "move away from the current capitalist model to avoid surpassing planetary boundaries and to avoid climate and ecological catastrophe".

That organisation understands that a system of production for profit is incompatible with doing what we need to do to avoid climate catastrophe. This is because capitalism treats nature as a free gift to be exploited, just as it exploits labour. It treats damage to the environment as an externality of which it does not have to take account. It is incapable of co-ordination because it is based on competition. Bluntly, the big oil and gas companies that are at the centre of capitalism have approximately €5 trillion to lose if we leave the oil and gas in the ground, as we certainly need to do. This is precisely why we need a socialist transformation and a planned economy for a rapid and just transition.

I want to speak briefly about the brutal coup in Sudan, which was carried out by Lieutenant-General Al-Burhan. On day one of the coup, seven peaceful protestors were killed, with three more killed the following day and ten in the four days that followed. I am sure the number has increased since then. The people of Sudan, who made the revolution, are facing the remains of the old regime, various warlords and regional and some international supporters whose interests are in controlling Sudan's resources through their local agents. I agree with the view expressed by the trade union committee of the Sudan Doctors Union in the UK, as follows:

The coup leaders cannot turn back the hands of the clock, as the Sudanese people have declared "no way back". Our people are capable of achieving what they want despite the attempts of the tyrants to kill our dreams of freedom, peace and justice... We call on the masses to declare complete civil disobedience and take to the streets to oppose this coup. Our trade union committee will resist the coup by any means possible and will mobilize solidarity...for a total general strike.

We need a clear statement from Ireland unreservedly condemning the military coup and a similar statement from the EU. We must express our solidarity with those who were on the streets in Dublin and around the world on Saturday mobilising against this coup.

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