Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, spoke of his return from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, summit in Poland. When I attended an IPCC summit ten years ago, we spoke about matters being urgent. A decade later, they are past being urgent. That is clear to every child in the street. We hear that generation speaking very passionately about their concerns regarding climate change. In many parts of the world, concern has been replaced by grief for animals, birds, land and lives that have already been lost, and the further losses people will see in their immediate lifetimes.

Something that often happens at climate conferences, in this House, and in politics generally is that people speak about general urgency before referring to many particular and complicated stories. There are always stories about who is a worse polluter than ourselves, why we cannot be as good as somebody else, what special exemptions are necessary and why matters are more complicated for our country, our Departments or certain sectors. The position is complicated for every country, every Department and every sector and they must all grapple with this issue.

Irish people are particularly adept at telling stories and using words - as evidenced by what has already been stated during this debate - but that is not sufficient. We must look to take action. It is a basic narrative logic. Watching a disaster movie where there are 12 minutes left, where the characters have not started to run or where they have not begun to change direction, one must consider that things may not be turned around in time. In reality, each of these minutes represents one year. The impacts are very real and there will be no sequel. It is urgent at this point. We have 12 years, and in that context, we cannot afford to waste a year.

The point of these statements was supposed to be for the Government to speak to Senators directly about what will happen in 2019 and what had happened this year. That has not proven to be the case. I agree with Senators who stated that it would probably be necessary for the various Ministers to return in January in order to address the specific actions during the year, as they are required to do under legislation.

Next year is particularly crucial because it precedes the 2020 threshold. The EPA has indicated that Ireland is likely to achieve only 1% of its 20% target for reductions. That is seriously inadequate. We heard about the climate action fund. Should that not be tripled in size? Should we not put €200 million into climate action next year rather than lose similar amounts in fines that we will be obliged to pay in 2020? It is very difficult to justify inaction in next year, which is one of the 12 crucial years and the year prior to 2020 targets.

I was very concerned that so many contributions, with few exceptions, focused very heavily on adaptation. I worked on adaptation for four years. It is a very serious issue but where are the references to mitigation? Are we simply accepting that we will just increase our targets, that we are ploughing ahead with business as usual but that Ireland will be okay because we will put a few things in place to deal with the bad weather if it comes. That is not sufficient. We have a global responsibility, we are visiting devastation upon other countries and we must say what our mitigation plan is because if it is only delivering a 1% reduction by the end of 2019, then it is a massive failure.

The subject of these statements is transition. Is it a transition to a devastated future or are we transitioning our model? I want to acknowledge the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and the Environment who was one of the only Ministers to contribute this evening who referred to transition in the sense of changing our model of business. Right now, the Minister of State currently representing the Government in the Chamber is from the Department of Finance. His Department must take that to which I have just referred on board.