John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

I am delighted to be here in the Seanad and to have been given the opportunity to discuss this very important issue. I have dispensed with the ministerial speech because I am so interested in what has been said, and I want to respond to the speakers.

I congratulate Senator Ivana Bacik on her initiative, as well as her Independent colleagues. I also congratulate Mr. Oisín Coughlan of Friends of the Earth who helped in drafting the legislation. I genuinely hope that this is not just a debate in the Chamber today, but the beginning of a dialogue through which we can move forward in a spirit of consensus. That, above all else, is important when debating the issue of climate change, and I shall say a little about that later on.

Numerous speakers have stated that this is an urgent issue. Indeed, it is the biggest issue humanity has ever faced. This is not an exaggeration. The science is now incontrovertible. The fourth IPCC report shows very clearly that the debate is over. Human beings are causing the warming of planet Earth. Not only that, we have a window of opportunity of only ten years to avert the worst consequences of climate change by stabilising our CO2 emissions. We have ten years to act decisively and that is it. There is no more to debate; we shall have to do it. It will not be just a small party such as the Green Party but rather everyone in this Chamber acting together. We all have a role to play. That is why I said earlier that it is important we act together.

Senator Norris was saying that we just have this planet. The late Petra Kelly used to say, "We have one planet and there are no emergency exits." That is the bottom line, so we can forget about the science fiction of dumping planet Earth and going elsewhere.

At the request of the Taoiseach I recently attended the biggest Heads of State meeting in the UN on climate change. It was a great occasion to be sitting there with everyone, from Mr. Qazi Mohammad Amin Waqad from Afghanistan to Dr. Condoleezza Rice and Chancellor Angela Merkel, all concerned about this issue. During the lunch break, Al Gore gave a talk. As we know, the science on this is being updated all the time. Senator Norris mentioned the ice pack up in the north. Al Gore told us that only last week, the evidence was coming clearly from Boulder, Colorado which stated that if we do not stabilise the CO2 emissions now, the ice in the North Pole will be gone within 23 years. One can imagine the consequences of that. It will affect our climate enormously.

Senator Norris is quite right in saying that the climate has already changed. Even if we stabilise, we are still going to be dealing with the consequences of climate change. Our climate has already changed. I issued an Environmental Protection Agency report quite recently which stated clearly that in some parts of the country we are already experiencing 20% more rainfall than previously, and the temperatures have changed. Anecdotally, one can see that we now have mosquitoes in this country, something we did not have before. People are putting the bluetongue outbreak down to climate change because we have midges we did not have before, so it will affect us in ways that are quite unimaginable.

There was an enormous missed opportunity at Rio. I remember the great sense of hope all of us in the environmental movement had then — those of us who had been talking about climate change for a long time before that. I recall going on the Gay Byrne show a long time ago, back in 1990. Rio presented a fantastic opportunity and it was felt that now we could talk about the dangers of runaway climate change. The key point is that looking at the history of our earth's climate, planet Earth does not do climate change slowly. It has always done so unimaginably fast. That is why we are so concerned about the issue. There are those who claim that while the situation may be changing, we can wait because it may be 100 years down the road. It will not be like that. All the evidence indicates otherwise.

I said at the UN that I am proud of its role, notwithstanding the vested interests of the Germans and others. I have seen the Germans in action at the Council of Ministers with regard the German car industry. On one occasion I had to berate my colleague, Joschka Fischer, about his defence of the German car industry because we could have been down two car emissions of about 130g. That is the route we should go, but vested interests exist.

Many years ago when I was Lord Mayor of Dublin, I visited an exhibition of electric cars in California and met the Governor, Pete Wilson. I congratulated him and said it was fantastic that the state would go down the route of ZEVs — zero emissions vehicles. He said that was not the future, rather reformulated gasoline. Of course, ZEVs did not happen and the concept of the electric car was killed. One can now see a video, perhaps on the YouTube website, called "Who killed the electric car?" Clearly therefore, those vested interests can act decisively, and I hope they will act now in the best interests of the planet.

The EU has played a very constructive role. It has set targets, as have we, of a 20% reduction by 2020. We hope to have a 30% reduction if we can get a comprehensive agreement at the Bali meeting, which I hope will not be another Rio and instead will be the turning point at which we take climate change seriously. I get the feeling from meetings in New York that a breakthrough is possible and that the US may be on board. Arnold Schwarzenegger made a speech at the UN to the effect that California is to go ahead with its plans, but changes in lifestyle will be required. Although California has a wonderfully warm climate, not only do people drive their cars, they use tumble dryers and will not put out their clothes to dry.

There are many possibilities. The challenge facing us is enormous. We must reduce our emissions by 80% by 2050, and perhaps even by90%. Think of the difficulties we have in this country in trying to reduce emissions by 3% annually and then consider the scale of that challenge of reducing emissions by 90% in a short period. The European Council has recognised that we must reduce by this much.

With regard to the Bill, it has been correctly acknowledged by Senator Bacik that this proposed legislation is less radical than what is proposed in the programme for Government. The Green Party negotiated what I believe to be a very good deal on climate change, the environment and energy. We got they key Ministries in those areas and agreed a 3% annual reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. The commission in this area which we have proposed will, I hope, be set up before Christmas, and I am progressing that as quickly as possible. The carbon budgeting plan is in place and will happen this year. It will be a difficult challenge but it will happen because it must.

The Cabinet sub-committee on climate change is chaired by the Taoiseach. This is a forum through which we must examine how each area feeds into CO2 emissions. As Senator O'Toole noted earlier, we must also consider the fact that methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than CO2.

We are examining the agriculture and transport sectors, the latter being a difficult sector with which to deal. Our transport emissions will increase by 218% if we continue the way we are going, building motorways and so on.

We must understand there are differences on this issue between various parties in this House. While not blowing our own trumpet, the Green Party has led the way, but in doing so, we have perhaps been greatly ahead of the posse. Most people in this country like their motorways, and it is difficult to persuade them that motorways are not in the best interests of climate change, that we should invest the money in public transport. We recognise that we must bring people with us.

The carbon levy is also a thorny subject, and at the previous general election, the Green Party was the only party to propose that levy, although people said it was political suicide. Everyone will have to come on board on this issue and eventually recognise we must decarbonise our society, which means we must put a price on carbon.

Accordingly, it is important we achieve consensus on this issue. At some stage, Fine Gael and the Labour Party may well be in Government and the Green Party might be in Opposition or in Government with them. No one knows what will happen in the future. However, in terms of this single most important issue we face, we must act together. We rescued our economy many years ago with the support of the Opposition parties. We had enlightened leadership in Opposition parties and we saved our economy, indeed our country. We now must do the same on the climate change issue. If we want to have our planet, we must act together. We have a responsibility.

I do not accept the argument that we contribute only 1% to global emissions. That is not the point. We can make a major contribution by doing well in Ireland. Senators spoke of those opportunities and the science for them exists. I met some people today who are investing in wave energy. This country had an opportunity in the early 1980s to invest in wind energy and in research and development in that area. We did not take it and the Danes and Germans went ahead of us. Now we have a wave energy opportunity and I hope we will not waste it.

We have taken some initiatives and have introduced the building regulations, which are a step in the right direction, but we must go further. My ambition was to increase building energy efficiency by 40% and then to move to 60%, but I believe we can go to zero carbon emission by 2016. We must reach that target. It is not impossible. I have seen the prototype houses and they are now being built commercially in Britain. We can build housing estates of such houses. It is not a case of them being south-facing being some kind of strange house. The architecture and the science are in place and we must pursue this issue. Going on my discussions with the building trade, I believe it will come on board.

We are also introducing proper carbon offsetting for ministerial flights. This will be unique for this country and we will be the first to do it. We will invest in projects in Africa. We will know for a fact that this will be proper carbon offsetting. It was said during the debate that one can simply log on to a computer to do this, but in terms of carbon offsetting, one does not know where the money goes.

Some points have been made and I wish to respond to them. I hope I have an opportunity to respond to all Senators. Senator Coffey referred to insulation grants. I can confirm that this is part of the programme for Government. We will give money for the installation programme. I can assure the Senator of that. He also raised the question of a bio-energy action plan. Again, that is part of the programme for Government. Concerns about bio-fuels have been raised by some environmentalists. There is no question in my mind but that there is a problem in certain parts of the world. When one starts to chop down rain forests so that one can invest in bio-fuels, one certainly has a problem. It must be done properly.

Senator O'Toole raised certain issues. He and I agree on a lot of matters. I will not go over what he said because I would be just agreeing with everything. Senator O'Reilly was critical of my colleague, the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy Eamon Ryan. The Minister is reforming the greener home scheme and wants to ensure the same amount of money is spent. Clearly what we would like to see happen is for the money to go to people who cannot afford these green measures. Many of the people getting the grants were on their second grant. There was no difficulty for them in terms of cost. It is simply a question of reform.

I am delighted this legislation has been introduced in the House. I turn to the Opposition in general, although I know the Independents are quite separate from other parties. My colleague, Senator Boyle, has indicated that he would like to see this legislation back before the House on 20 December after the Bali talks. However, he is quite clear that is subject to getting all the parties to agree, and not only on setting targets. Targets are one thing but we must agree on basic measures. It is very easy to set the bar but we will have to jump over it together.

The Green Party, when in Opposition, said it would introduce legislation and it offered the Government full co-operation. We said to the Government at the time that if it wanted to cut back on motorways, invest in public transport and introduce a carbon levy, we would be support it all the way. In fact, we said we would support it in anything it wanted to do that would deal with the climate crisis. I do not expect a blank cheque from Opposition parties but I expect a measure of co-operation. That is the best way in which we can move forward on this very important issue.