Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Next week the Government will consider and, it is hoped, agree the latest iteration of our climate action plan, which is now backed up by significant powers in law for us to deliver sectoral changes in energy, transport, agriculture and industry over the next five or ten to 15 years, moving towards net zero within three decades. I do not think the scale of that change is really understood by any of us yet. Everything will have to change in a relatively short time in order that we play our part in avoiding the burning of our world and make sure we are at the centre of the new industrial revolution taking place. This will be a switch towards a better system; it will not work otherwise. If we look at it from that perspective, there are certain lessons or approaches we should take.

First, we should be open to the world. We should not go back. We tried a closed system whereby we were reliant on just our own resources and it did not work. We saw huge emigration in the 1950s and 1940s. That connection - Deputy Pringle laughs, but that is the lesson of history-----

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