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

In addressing just transition we need to mark where we are today in regard to climate change and its impact throughout the world. In our politics and public life there is still the sense that climate change and the just transition are still some time away and that we still have time to prepare for them. However, this week parts of India reached 49oC and parts of Pakistan reached 51oC. That scorching heat makes record-breaking heatwaves 100 times more likely. As some forecasters have put it, extreme heat events that would usually take place every 300 years might now occur every three years. Closer to home in Europe, Cordoba in Spain is expected to hit 43oC this weekend. We are not immune to any of this.

At this stage we have to wonder whether the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications actually gets it. Far from giving party political advice, this really is not about seats or elections because we are facing an existential crisis. The Green Party is meant to be synonymous with environmentalism, so the Minister of State really has a huge responsibility here. He seems to have been captured by the old-fashioned pre-climate change economics of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil where growth is king and let us not upset big business. On just transition it seems to be taking a genteel, almost academic observer position on something that needs a radical and revolutionary response. When it comes to just transition we do not even have a proper definition of it, despite the efforts of Sinn Féin and many others among the Opposition.

I am really concerned about the people who are already barely hanging on, crucified by price hikes in rents, fuel, energy and, shortly, food. These are people who are not racing around the suburbs in SUVs or flying off on holidays a few times a year. The people to whom I refer live miles from public transport and can only afford a banger rather than a new electric vehicle. These people have done the least harm and cannot be left to fend for themselves. How on earth are they going to manage to just hurry up and transition given that they are already so far behind, so excluded by a tepid response to a scorching issue?

Sinn Féin wants just transition, not the order to simply hurry up and transition that we seem to hear from Government. Our world is on fire and the Government is tiptoeing around with artisan buckets as opposed to the hose we need to keep people and life alive on this planet, delighted with itself for using environmentally-friendly buckets and saving the price of calling the fire brigade. As Deputy Ó Cathasaigh said recently, when he started off on a marathon, he was not prepared for it. He realised very quickly that the world does not, and will not, care. We really want to be getting on with just transition.

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