Joe O'Reilly (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is very apt that I am speaking on this matter this morning. Earlier this morning I was proud to be online when a group of young Irish people, members of Foróige under the leadership of Sandra McIntyre, Mr. McKiernan and others, spoke to the Council of Europe on climate change and on their perception of what should be done with the just transition, etc.I was proud to facilitate that and proud of the brilliance of their performance. I recommend that the Minister listen to them online. It is easily accessed. As an Irish Minister, he will be proud of them too. It would be great if he let Foróige know of his pride. It is an amazing achievement. They flew the Irish flag and put us in the vanguard this morning. They started very early this morning because European time is an hour ahead.

I welcome the Minister. I sat on the Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and Natural Resources with him in the past and am aware of his passion, commitment and integrity in this matter. It was always a joy to work with him and is a pleasure to welcome him to the House.

There are no climate deniers now, so we will avoid all that. We have had the evidence recently in the storms, and they are nothing like what is to come if we do not cop on. There are ambitious targets here of 51% by 2030, neutral by 2050 and 7% per annum. The big thing is they are enshrined in legislation and that is good.

I turn to the need for a just transition. I know the Minister is a champion of this. We have to avoid energy poverty. Nobody wants our poor people to be the victims of this. That is why, with retrofitting and everything else, they need support.

Our farmers are the custodians of the earth and very proud of it. They have bought in to this project, and I think the Minister knows that. There are a few things we can do such as in the context of carbon removal or sequestration, forestry, hedgerows and, later on, grasses, through the good work of Teagasc. Carbon sequestration is implicitly recognised in the legislation. Given that those responsible are measuring the impact of forestry in this regard and will progress to measure other forms of sequestration, I appeal to the Minister to put specifics into the Bill to encourage farmers and give them reductions based on that sequestration, monitor it and allow it to be part of the agricultural input, both explicitly and implicitly.

Biogenic methane emissions have a ten-year lifespan. If we stabilise the herd, we would reach a neutral position in ten years. We could have a separate target of reductions for biogenic methane. That does not preclude any other exercises in sustainability but it would allow farmers to see a just transition for them and it would be a fair measurement. I appeal to the Minister to look seriously at that in the final draft of the legislation.

We need to support sustainability in agriculture. We need a support system so farm incomes do not fall. We need to preserve family farms, our food and our rural way of living. It will be counterintuitive and ruin our efforts if we do not do that.

The Minister should put much more emphasis on delineating all the green jobs that are available. That is the positive side of this. Each Department should set targets for retrofitting, solar panels, alternative crops, wave and wind energy and all the areas that can provide green jobs. I ask the Minister to respond on that later. We should have targets and measurements there.

The co-operative movement regenerated rural Ireland at the end of the 19th century and early in the 20th century. I ask the Minister to use a local model to solve the climate change problem. The Minister heard me speak on this at committee when we sat together. I mean that we need communities to have a local generator or a wind turbine in their area, so they can sell their electricity to the grid and power their enterprises and homes. That promotes jobs locally, commitment and buy-in.

I have always pioneered the idea that we need to encourage first-time drivers - as in the case of first homes - into buying electric cars. We should reduce or eliminate vehicle registration tax in order to incentivise them to buy electric cars as their first cars.If they use an electric car, they will buy into the sustainable and green energy project. Young people are the custodians of the future. Not only will they have that buy-in, they will continue in electric cars, start having an eco-friendly house and lifestyle and go back to an anti-consumerist and more holistic, green way of living, if they get their electric cars and have pride in them. I ask the Minister, as the Minister for Transport, to look at that.

This is a good day's work. I appeal to the Minister to look at the just transition for farmers because they are the custodians and the people we need on board. I support all the other elements. The big thing is this will be enshrined in legislation. That is how it should be and there will be no opting out.