Jennifer Whitmore (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

We stand here today, as spokespeople for the climate within our respective parties, debating not climate initiatives, climate actions or climate targets but an accounting exercise.

It is an accounting exercise where Ireland will purchase 4.1 million carbon credits that will cost €2.9 million to give the pretence that we are doing our bit for climate action and to ease our collective climate consciences. This is on top of already spending €50 million through a similar exercise with transfers from Denmark and Estonia for missing our 2020 target. It was reported today by Caroline O'Doherty in the Irish Independentthat the financial consequences of not meeting our climate targets could be more than €8 billion by 2030, which is an incredible amount of money.

However, the true cost of this failure goes far beyond this eye-watering figure of €8 billion. The environmental, societal and broader economic cost of failure is immeasurable. I have worked in and studied the area of the environment since I was 17. Over that time, I have seen many Governments come and go and have seen many promises made and broken by Governments. I have seen so many opportunities lost over that period. It is becoming progressively more difficult to keep the faith and belief that we can change the trajectory on this issue. I know many people feel as I do on this. I want the Government to succeed when it comes to addressing our biodiversity and climate crisis and I want the Minister of State and his Green Party colleagues to succeed on those issues.

However, the time comes when there is a need for a reality check. Three years into this Government and on a day when the Government is signing off on a cheque for €3 million to pay another country to undertake climate action on our behalf, we need this reality check now. The question is whether the Minister of State and the Government are achieving what they need to achieve when it comes to climate action. Are they getting the job done or at this stage in the game, are they essentially giving cover to their coalition colleagues to give the veneer of environmentalism?Let us look at the record. The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act was a significant achievement. It was incredibly important that it was done so I commend the Minister of State and his colleagues on bringing that in. It lays the foundation for everything that needs to follow. The question for us now concerns the deliverability of all those measures and actions that will enable us to meet obligations under the Act. Are they happening? On the Government's watch, emissions continue to rise. They went up by 4.7% in 2021 compared to 2020 and are currently 1.1% higher than they were pre-Covid. The Government still has 481,000 retrofits to B2 level that it needs to achieve by 2030 out of its target of 500,000. There is a 24-month waiting list for retrofits for people at risk of energy poverty to help them make their homes climate-sustainable. Even the most basic infrastructure has not been rolled out. It is taking more than a year and counting for a single charging point to be installed in Blessington for electric vehicles, so it is clear that progress is not being made.

Probably most poignantly or incredibly, only a few weeks ago, the Minister of State and his Government and party colleagues voted against including an amendment of mine in the Environmental Protection Agency (Emergency Electricity Generation) (Amendment) Act that would have meant that this Act had to comply with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act. This was an incredible thing for the Government to do. It said it did not want that Act to have to be in compliance with the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act. This and all the other measures I mentioned constitute a clear signal that the Government's policies are not working and that the Government is no longer working for the environment and a secure future not only for us but for our children. I ask the Minister of State to change course or else we will never be able to address the climate actions we need to undertake.

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