Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The latest warning today from the World Meteorological Organization is stark. We know that human-induced climate change has reached new extremes and some consequences are, sadly, now irreversible. The Government is simply not being proactive enough to meet our essential targets for emission reductions. On "Morning Ireland" today, Peter Thorne, chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council, expressed frustration, stating he does not even know whether the Government is listening. Yesterday An Bord Pleanála granted permission to Shannon LNG for a commercial power plant in the Shannon estuary. This development flies in the face of any sensible or responsible climate policy aimed at addressing climate change. Our climate representative, Deputy Ciarán Ahern, has outlined his strong opposition and our party's opposition to this highly polluting power plant and to the importation of fracked gas. We call on the Taoiseach and the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, to intervene to stop this going ahead and, instead, to develop State-backed offshore and renewable energy generation capacity. This is what we need. The Taoiseach spoke about the demonisation of data centres but looking at the proliferation of data centres, and the enormous usage of electricity constituted by data centres, which use more than 20% of our electricity, we have to take a more responsible approach to meeting our climate targets and to ensuring that climate policy really does run through all Government decisions, as the Taoiseach said it should.

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