Holly Cairns (Cork South West, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I have to ask if the Government believes in climate science. It is hard to see how it can believe in climate science and then take some of the decisions that it is taking. We had confirmation yesterday that the extraordinary growth of data centres is continuing. Their consumption of electricity increased by more than 30% last year. Data centres now use up as much electricity as every single household in urban areas and nearly twice as much as all rural homes. The amount of electricity demand from data centres was almost entirely matched by the growth in electricity from wind generation in 2022. In other words, we are running to stand still in decarbonising our energy system.

The Government does not seem to have any concerns about this.

Yesterday, the Minister for the Environment, Climate, Communications, Deputy Eamon Ryan, criticised the Opposition for blaming data centres and vowed to work with them. I cannot believe I need to explain this to the leader of the Green Party, but it seems necessary to do so. We do not blame data centres for being data centres. We blame the Government for not introducing a moratorium on data centres when the Social Democrats first called for one two years ago, and for failing to impose conditions on their operations.

It is not just data centres that are endangering our climate targets. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Government's entire climate action plan is in crisis. In the best case scenario, if every part of the plan is fully implemented, our emissions will decrease by only 29%, not the necessary 51%. How will the Government bridge this enormous gap? We have no idea. Does the Taoiseach? Instead of talking about this, he has been much more eager to talk about the EU nature restoration law but, sadly, not in a useful or constructive way, just scaremongering. He said the law would make it more difficult to build wind farms. WindEurope has described his remarks as fundamentally wrong. He said the law goes too far and would endanger our food security. The opposite is true. Not that we needed any more evidence, more than 60 major companies and industry groups have rejected that, saying our food security depends on protecting and restoring our critically endangered biodiversity.

To be fair, I should say the Taoiseach is not alone in cynically undermining the law. Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin MEPs are doing the same. People are genuinely worried about politicians talking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue. It is too important. They want climate action, not a combination of greenwashing and scaremongering. It is not an exaggeration to say our lives and our livelihoods depend on it.

Will the Government impose a moratorium on data centres until it has carried out a strategic review? Will the Taoiseach tell us how it is intended to bridge the gap in the climate action plan? Will Fine Gael MEPs support the EU nature restoration law?

See this speech in context