Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House and praise him personally. He is quite modest but he has fought for this legislation for a long time and deserves our congratulations for that. Like others have said, the Joint Committee on Climate Action has done enormous work. I also wish to praise the climate strikers over the years. Those young people drew all of our attention to the importance of being able to address climate action and shows that young people can make a meaningful impact on political life.

I welcome the fact that the Minister will take this legislation to UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties, COP26, in Glasgow and it is important that Ireland can be a leader in this regard. I suggest that Ireland offers to hold a UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties meeting at some stage in the future.

Climate change needs a whole-of-government approach and tackling climate change must influence every single aspect of everything that we do. For example, as we seek to meet UN targets, sustainability elements must be built into our overseas aid. We should reward and encourage higher education institutions for investing in areas of research that will contribute towards sustainability within our communities and, indeed, towards tackling global climate change.

It is important in any discussion of carbon budgets, which colleagues have mentioned, that there is communication about what is going on and there is engagement of all of our citizens. It is essential that there is an effective communications campaign in operation as we go through the negotiation of the budgets. I emphasise to the Minister that it is important that we bring people with us.

Many colleagues have talked about the impact on the agricultural sector. Farmers are going to be our front-line workers in the battle against climate change and want to play their part. If we think about the fact that this planet will have a population of 11 billion people by 2100, then we must ensure that we have food for all, guaranteed food security and have a planet on which we can all live.

We must recognise the fact that farmers seek environmental and financial sustainability. Those who criticise the farming community need to understand the financial pressures that farmers are under. If supports are provided to farming communities then farmers will be climate change warriors and will address some of the challenges.

Earlier Senator Kyne talked about the planting of forestry. Why do we not allow farmers and landowners to own the carbon credits? Let farmers be able to trade the carbon credits that they can generate from their land and allow them to offset it against their other activities or, indeed, within the wider economy.We must roll out technology and use big data, such as soil maps, to ensure the most effective yield from agriculture is achieved. We must use blockchain for the transparency of or supply chains. We must use technology in a very innovative way. We must have farming that is less resource intensive but more sustainable. I agree with everything my colleague, Senator Paul Daly, has said. We must ensure we bring farming communities with us. As Senator Lombard said, we should utilise the great experience young farmers have to tackle the largest existential problem we face.