Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Pringle for pushing consistently for this debate because it is very important. It should have been about a formal announcement by the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, that Ireland was immediately withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty. Unfortunately, it is not. Italy, Germany, France, Poland and Luxembourg have all already formally withdrawn. Ireland said it plans to withdraw but has not yet done so. The European Commission recommended a co-ordinated withdrawal by the whole of the European Union. The question is why on earth the Irish Government and the Green Party in that Government are dragging their feet on this matter. The argument I heard earlier from the Minister was to point to the 20-year sunset clause under which, even when a country leaves, it can still be sued for another 20 years. That is not an argument to stay; it is an argument to leave as quickly as possible so the clock starts on that sunset clause.

Rapid withdrawal is more urgent than ever. Every day, the amount of carbon in the atmosphere rises and the climate crisis worsens. The State is being sued for up to $100 million by Lansdowne Oil and Gas after the Minister quite rightly refused to grant it a lease for further oil exploration. Lansdowne Oil and Gas is owned by Larry Goodman. We are talking about a greedy, amoral billionaire demanding millions of euro off the public because he is not allowed to blast millions more tonnes of carbon into our already dangerously overheated atmosphere. He is suing us for not being allowed to cause more floods in County Cork, more devastating heatwaves across Europe and more hurricanes and climate refugees across the world. Every day we remain a member of this outrageously anti-environmental and pro-big oil and gas treaty exposes us to further costly litigation through its investor state dispute system. It is an entirely illegitimate system of secret, private courts that favour the interests of profit over the interests of humanity and our interest in living on a liveable planet. All over the world, states trying to transition to renewable energy are being sued for billions of dollars through these secret courts. An international cabal of fossil fuel speculators and greedy, disaster-chasing corporate lawyers and vulture funds finance these cases in the hopes of multimillion-dollar payouts, creating a massive chilling effect on climate action. Oil, gas and coal firms have so far been awarded more than $100 billion by Energy Charter Treaty tribunals, a staggering and outrageously unjust figure. It is estimated that states could ultimately have to pay out up to $1 trillion in total to fossil fuel companies under the Energy Charter Treaty to compensate them for not burning up our planet and not causing even more climate chaos than they already have. This is madness. It epitomises this upside-down system of capitalism.

We in People Before Profit say not a penny to the oil and gas companies that covered up for the terrible damage they have done to our climate and have known about for decades, since the 1970s. It is they who should be paying compensation to us, the public, not the other way around. They should be paying compensation to future generations and reparations to those most impacted by the climate crisis today - the poorest countries and people in the world. Just 100 companies, overwhelmingly in the oil and gas industry, are responsible for 71% of all carbon emissions since 1988. If we are to have any hope of getting to zero emissions in time to prevent total climate catastrophe, which would mean mass extinction for millions of species and suffering and death for billions of people, we must expropriate, not compensate, fossil fuel companies. We must take the energy system as a whole into democratic public ownership so we can plan for a rapid and just transition to renewable energy. We do not have a hope in hell otherwise. It is a case of eco-socialism or extinction. We cannot allow the Energy Charter Treaty to stand in the way of the vital climate emergency measures we need. We need a formal withdrawal as quickly as possible. We need it immediately and the Government could do it.

Ireland should publicly announce its support at COP28 for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty involving a complete global fossil fuel phase-out. This is being called for by a coalition of small island states and leading climate experts. It should be the number-one priority for the Green Party in Government given that its justification for propping up Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael was the opportunity to take meaningful climate action. It is now four years since the Government blocked People Before Profit's climate emergency Bill. It did so by citing the threat of legal action by fossil fuel companies as one reason for opposing it. What have the Government and the Green Party done since to mitigate that threat by, for example, withdrawing from the Energy Charter Treaty? Absolutely nothing. It is very clear what should happen. We should withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty now and state publicly that Ireland will not compensate any of these major corporations, especially not a corrupt billionaire like Larry Goodman, for destroying the basis of life on this planet.

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