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

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the annual transition statements and address the big picture of where we are. The cost-of-living crisis is bringing a new urgency and worry to the issue, not alone in terms of money and cost but by exposing the unsustainable way in which the global economic system encourages and depends on us to live. We were reminded of the sheer scale and folly of this by young people from across the State who came to speak to us at the climate committee in the Seanad last Friday week. They get all of it, the hell we are headed to without radical change. We must change so as to use radically less energy and we must manufacture, buy and consume less stuff. To give the impression they have the transition under control Governments, including our own, are peddling the narrative that tweaks will save us. Electric vehicles, wind and solar are crucial for sure but in the real and burning world tweaks will not save us. Less energy, production and consumption and less stuff has to be the premise from which a just transition flows. Otherwise we are ignoring what the scientists at the climate committee are telling us is just dead ahead.

The just transition that Sinn Féin is committed to must face the reality of where we are now, not the greenwash or the spin. We are well ahead in milestones of heat, methane release and acidity of our oceans. The current modelling has not even factored in the breaking up of the Antarctic ice or the atmosphere's sensitivity to carbon and methane. We have to target retrofitting our homes. We have to get clean public transport sorted. We have to look after our biodiversity and keep our waterways pristine with tough sanctions on polluters. In north Kildare last week we had our own biodiversity crisis in Leixlip with dangerous pollution of the River Rye, a salmon spawning site which is cherished by the community. It really is unacceptable.

As we come to the end of our Dáil term, let us be honest about where we are in our just transition. No matter the extremes, we can and must make the necessary radical changes even though we have to start from where we are now. We have to be honest with people. Otherwise we are just whistling in the wind.

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