Kevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister. I rile against the idea of a policy of what we can do. I firmly believe that this is a policy of what we must do. On climate change, it has reached the stage that the policies that we must implement have to take effect next week, not next month, next year or in the distant future.

I welcome the sensible approach of 180 actions and several sub-actions. It follows on from the successful Action Plan for Jobs. There has to be flexibility within the action plan because not every one of those 180 actions will work. However, we can learn from what does not work and move on and improve until we get it right. The mood in Ireland is that politicians and scientists cannot make mistakes. We all make mistakes; it is about how we learn from those mistakes and improve.

Many Members referred to the policy of having 950,000 electric cars on our roads. We need to examine that. Should everybody have a car? Do we need cars or are they outdated, especially in urban areas? Should we look more at car-sharing mechanisms? Our major cities of Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway all suffer from massive traffic jams and problems for commuters. If diesel and petrol cars are replaced with electric cars, we will still have the same problems and congestion on our roads. We need a level of joined-up thinking on whether we should race into replacing petrol and diesel cars with electric cars. It is not a long-term, sustainable policy. We have to re-examine our modes of transport.

I asked whether everybody needs a car, especially in urban areas, and that leads on to the issue of how we plan our cities and towns and how we increase density and plan green areas in and around them. There will always be a need for private transport in rural areas; it is just the nature of it that people will need a personal vehicle of some description. However, does that personal vehicle need to be able to travel between Galway and Dublin? Can we share cars for long-distance journeys and use small electric cars in the areas where we live?

The transition to the future could be quite exciting, with new means of transport and fuels. However, it has to be a just transition. Many people will be frightened by this transition and many people will lose their jobs and have to change their way of life. In a just transition, we would plan for that; people would see the support available and the alternative careers. That has to be worked at and the trust and confidence of the public has to be won, otherwise there will be major resistance.

The other element, which will be difficult for me and every other politician in the country, is that we will have to stand up to powerful interest groups both in our own country and externally. We cannot tackle climate change alone. We have to develop international agreements to assist other people transitioning to a low-carbon economy, and that will be difficult. That is where international trade agreements will come in. Some people will lose in those international trade agreements and some will gain, but as a benchmark, such agreements have to be tied to the Paris accord and to standards on the use of antibiotics in animals.We are running out of a range of antibiotics to deal with human health, never mind animal health. It will be a difficult period. I will also have to change my thinking. I will have to look at the powerful interest groups who coming knocking on my door and most times I will probably have to say this is no longer in the interest of the climate, this country or the planet.

I wish the Minister well. I give him a guarantee that I will not be politically opportunistic and will engage in a constructive way. It is far too important for us to pander to individual interest groups.