Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Any sensible person knows there is a climate and biodiversity emergency and that, if we do not address them, we will be in trouble. As much as the far right want to deny it, the impacts will cost our society very dearly. We have to recognise that large numbers of people have become alienated from the climate action and biodiversity action agenda because they see climate action as a punishment rather than as improving their lives. We have to change this. If we do not recognise that we are losing the room with a lot of people on this issue, we are heading for trouble. In fact, we are on the way there already.

What could we do to change this? We need to stop punishing people with various taxes, such as carbon taxes or excise fuel increases, and instead make people's lives better with climate action. The pace, for example, of the retrofit of council houses is pathetically slow. If we accelerated it and retrofitted people's homes whereby the homes were warmer and bills decreased, and this was done on scale, it would give people confidence in climate action. If we made public transport free and improved the quality and frequency of it, it would give people confidence in climate action. We need a radical reset, to use the language of the Housing Commission, in climate action so it makes ordinary people's lives better.

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