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

I will not repeat the written response I read earlier. More widely, we live in a time when people are naturally very concerned. Looking at what is happening in the global weather climate system at present, there is much real concern at the dramatic increase, outside any historic precedent, of the temperatures in the north Atlantic. The ongoing degradation of the Antarctic and Arctic ice sheets is cause for real fear and concern. It highlights the need for dramatic scaled-up action on climate. Sometimes we wonder if, God almighty, we are beyond salvation here, and if we will be able to meet these targets not just nationally but internationally.

Two or three things give me some sense of real purpose and hope. First, the renewable technologies that are the cornerstone of the energy solution, which is a key part of the problem, are starting to be developed and deployed at a scale and speed that we have not seen before, particularly the development of solar and wind power. Indeed, 90% of the new energy generation in the globe this year is going to be renewable. The scale of development of solar energy, in Ireland as well as elsewhere, is going beyond anything people expected. I think we may bust the modelling there, and go beyond what people have foreseen.

To give an example, Irish people are defying expectations in terms of what we can do on retrofitting our homes. The Deputy may have read an article in the Financial Timestwo weeks ago which cited the example of Ireland as best in case, best practice and the best example in Europe of the development of retrofitting. I was at a major International Energy Agency conference on energy efficiency last week. The chairs and chief executives of some of the biggest energy companies in Europe were on the platform and said Ireland was an example. I know there are areas where we are not fast enough but there are some where we are seeing real progress. I could continue but I want to make the point that we should be very careful that we do not fall into the trap of people giving up or being so terrified by what they see in the climate science of what is happening that we despair and do not double down to deliver what is working in many areas. We can and will do this. It is the way the world is going and we can and will be good at it.

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