Lynn Boylan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Everyone would admit that this is incredibly important legislation and is probably one of the most important Bills we will pass this year. It is long overdue and successive governments have been rightfully referred to as laggards. I take exception to Senator McDowell's point that Ireland's actions would be minuscule. He did not acknowledge that Ireland's climate emissions are 50% higher than the EU average and yet other EU countries have managed to successfully transition. The absence of concrete targets and a framework to achieve them is what has landed us in the situation we are in today, where we are going to have to climb a much steeper mountain than we would have if previous governments had done what was necessary.

I have become very familiar with this Bill since it underwent pre-legislative scrutiny by the Joint Committee on Climate Action last autumn. The Bill was presented to us just after 100 days of government and it was in a sorry state. It did not compare well internationally. Professor John Sweeney referred to its weasel words and summed it up in football terms, stating that if the Bill were a team in the Premier League it would have been in the relegation zone. It is worth remembering that despite it being an incredibly weak Bill, the Minister himself still wanted to fast-track it and try to get it passed before Christmas. I commend my committee colleagues, who collectively worked very hard to halt that rush to pass the Bill. We are all beneficiaries of that.

I also commend my colleagues on the committee for the cross-party basis on which we approached that pre-legislative scrutiny. With that spirit in mind, it is all the more disappointing that the Minister has undermined that broad support by failing to accept even a single amendment from the Opposition as this Bill passed through the Dáil. I hope he will reconsider his approach and keep an open mind about the amendments from those of us in the Opposition who are genuinely seeking to improve the Bill and have engaged in this process over the last number of months.

Sinn Féin will be tabling amendments on several areas that need improving, especially with regard to just transition. Just transition has to be at the heart of climate action. The challenge we face to turn the tide on climate change nationally and internationally is enormous. We must leave no community behind but instead bring people with us on this transition to a decarbonised future. As it stands, the Bill leaves a lot to be desired in terms of a just transition. The first version of the Bill did not have any mention of it and the Bill before us now refers to it only once. Where it does mention the just transition, that is all it is – a mention. The words will not have any legal effect. That is a big red flag in the Government’s planned approach to climate action.

The Government needs to reassure communities that it has learned from its first attempts at a just transition. Workers deserve good quality, decent paying work to transition into. The Minister has promised stand-alone just transition legislation but I am afraid that is putting the cart before the horse. The just transition cannot just be an add-on; it has to be fundamental to tackling climate action. We will seek to introduce amendments based on the example of the Scottish Climate Act, which has a chapter of just transition principles and calls for impact assessments of the climate action plans. That would be a reasonable, practical, constructive and just approach to this Bill.

Several groups and individuals have concerns about this legislation, including the Climate Change Advisory Council.I understand that it has sought independent legal advice and clarifications from the Department. It is concerning to the legislators in the Oireachtas that the council's concerns have not been made public in advance of the Bill's passage. We need to have all of the information before us when we consider the legislation.

The pandemic has given us as a society the opportunity to learn important lessons. Things that we were previously told were impossible are suddenly possible. More people were able to work from home, more cycle lanes and public spaces opened up, and we are spending less time in cars commuting and more time enjoying the outdoors. As we begin to reopen, it cannot be an opportunity to fall back into old habits. We need to redouble our efforts to make our cities more sustainable and more livable for everyone. That would be good for our health, our communities and the planet. We need more pedestrian spaces, good-quality cycle lanes and a public transport system that works for all communities, including those with disabilities and mobility issues. A number of disability organisations have raised concerns about the pedestrianisation of certain parts of our city as well as issues about BusConnects, which the National Transport Authority is working to address.

Housing policy must become climate policy as well. How can we ensure that people are less dependent on cars, particularly in our cities, if they are forced to live far away from where they work, play and send their children to school? Housing affordability, particularly in our city centres, is vital. The key to delivering affordable homes is tackling the large number of vacant homes, which are artificially reducing supply and inflating costs. Hundreds of luxury apartments owned by US vulture funds lie empty and many spaces above shops lie underutilised. To any right-thinking person, that is unconscionable during a housing crisis. We need to see these developments coming on stream and we need to free up those empty apartments.

We need to tackle the embedded carbon in our building products and embrace new technologies and new ways of developing construction, particularly residential construction, so that we do not just take into account the energy usage of new homes, but also all of the carbon involved in building them.

The transition is about more than just reducing greenhouse gases. It is about transforming our society and economy for a better life for everyone. This means leaving no people, communities or sectors behind as we transition away from fossil fuels. We need a new approach to climate issues. For too long, people have seen climate action as a form of punishment, as something being taken away from them or as an additional cost. We need to give people the opportunity to make sustainable choices. This means investing in a public transport system that is fit for purpose, providing affordable and efficient homes, and developing our natural resources for the benefit of our people. We need a Government that will take on the interests that benefit from the status quo.

The Tánaiste's strategy for more data centres is at odds with the State's climate strategy. At a time when we are supposed to be reducing emissions, the data centres of tech giants will add at least 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂to our carbon emissions in the coming decade. According to EirGrid, all of the new demand for electricity over the next ten years will come from data centres, not electric cars or increases in population. As usual, Fine Gael is thwarting real climate action to support its friends in industry. However, it will be the public that picks up the fines if we miss our EU targets and it will be the public dealing with ever-increasing energy costs. When Deputy Varadkar was Taoiseach, Ireland earned the mantle of "climate laggard". Now that he is Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment with responsibility for data centres, he is doing everything in his power to ensure we keep that title. We need a new strategy that develops renewable energy for the benefit of the population.

It is essential that our biodiversity does not become the sacrificial lamb to renewable energy or climate action. Climate change impacts on our biodiversity, but so does climate action. We need to get the balance right. We must have marine protected zones in parallel with the outworkings of the development of offshore wind energy. Likewise, it makes no sense to put wind farms on our peatland bogs, as is happening in the Mid-Shannon Wilderness Park. I wrote to the Minister about this matter last year, so I might get a response at some stage.

If the Government is serious about its climate commitments, it must call a halt to investor chapters in trade deals.We know the energy charter treaty is causing huge problems for countries as they try to transition to a decarbonised future. We know we are trying to railroad through CETA, which facilitates multinationals suing the Government and the Irish public for billions of euro in compensation if they do not like the regulations we introduced to deal with environmental problems. It allows them to bypass national courts in favour of a system in which the multinationals are five times more likely to win. CETA investor chapters must be rejected. We must make investor chapters a thing of the past if we truly want to tackle climate change on an international scale. It means taking on big business. The Irish public cannot be left on the hook for the stranded assets of multinationals, which lied and sowed doubt on the scale of climate change. I look forward to engaging on Committee and Report Stages to offer constructive solutions to improve the Bill. I hope the Minister will reconsider and work with Members of the Opposition in the House who are genuinely trying to improve the Bill.