Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to follow Senator Higgins. We have soldiered together on that Oireachtas committee. She is right. The analyses of the likes of Barry McMullin, Kevin Anderson and others have been presented and we cannot deny the science. It is clear and presents a completely scary reality that we are heading towards, seemingly inexorably. We have known the science since Dr. James Hansen testified before a US Senate committee back in 1988 The science has not changed that much. We know the risks, downsides and potential disaster that could unfold if we allow our climate that has been balanced and stable for 10,000 years to tip into runaway dangerous climate change. No one can deny that. That is the climate science.

What we need to work out as well is the political science to raise the level of urgency and response that is commensurate with the climate science. We have to admit that is difficult. The House is not full for this debate, for example, with no criticism of anyone. It is indicative of the need for change. How do we inspire in people a sense of urgency and a sense we can make the leap? It is a leap, given the scale of change. Whether it is 7% or higher, it is a leap. No one and no country has done anything like it and no example can be shown for that scale or speed of change. I believe we can and will do it. There will be various things encouraging us to make the leap. We need to be honest and upfront with people about the science. However, if it is just that story, we might get frozen in fear. A lot of people are frozen in fear. We need also to inspire people to make the leap out of love of home and love of each other.

It is appropriate to point out that making the leap, as well as protecting against the potential for runaway catastrophic climate change, can and will be good for us. It will be good for social justice; I am convinced of that. I have seen when campaigning on things like active travel or public transport that it is about recognising it is a more socially just system. Senator Kyne will know small farmers out in Connemara and those areas. That is where the money is going to go. It is going to create an income stream for many of the farmers who get the least out of the existing system. It will redistribute money to the north and west of the country because that is where we can do some of the nature-based solutions. We have to do it everywhere but certainly it will help those in parts of the country with poorer land who have been getting the least because by definition they are not as successful in this intensive agricultural system we have created. It will also be healthier. There is nothing to beat clean air for people's health. There is nothing to beat clean water. We have to address the biodiversity crisis as well as the climate crisis, and that means cleaner water. It means the farming has to change as we pay them more to help with those solutions. That is our health in a natural environment, with healthier food. A low carbon diet is a healthier diet.

It is also an economic opportunity for our country. It is an economic opportunity for every country because the nature of this renewable energy system we are going to switch to is that it is distributed. It is not as energy dense as oil, gas or nuclear but it is everywhere. It belongs to everyone. We will never hold someone to ransom over a solar panel. For us it is a massive economic opportunity. We can and will be good at this balancing act of electrifying everything and the dance between variable supply and variable demand. It is no harm for us to tell that story as well as the scientific story of real fear.

We have real potential because in Irish politics we have been working together in those Oireachtas committees and in previous governments. Deputy Richard Bruton's original plan in 2019 was really good and we are following it, just ramping up the level of ambition. We have achieved a broad consensus. That Oireachtas joint committee report in 2018 influenced what Deputy Bruton did in 2019, which in turn has influenced what we are doing now. Even though the committee may have been divided in terms of whether there needs to be further ambition, I do not think it is fundamentally divided on that sense that there is an opportunity for us to gain by taking this leap together. The vast majority in the Seanad, Dáil and local authorities throughout the country and the vast majority of the people are starting to believe that in their hearts and in their heads.

We are also fortunate to have a very good Climate Change Advisory Council which is really experienced. It produces the statistics and carries out oversight and reviewing, keeping an eye on Government. The council members came up with a lot of the proposals in terms of how we account for things. Professor Peter Thorne, who was formerly adviser to the joint committee, is on the Climate Change Advisory Council. I would trust Peter when it comes to managing this incredibly complex issue of land use, land use change and forestry, LULUCF, leading into the agriculture, forestry and other land use, AFOLU, accounting regulations. Peter is as good as it gets. He was one of the leading authors of the latest IPCC report, as I understand. That is backed up by those whom we got in from the IPCC to speak to the previous Oireachtas committee. We follow the science.

I will conclude on something from Senator Higgins's home turf. How do we make that work in Galway, which is in the news at the moment? I was in County Clare last week and met the council. It was very interesting. They are well up for this and open to it. They know their local area well. We need that local knowledge. We cannot push people into this, beat them into it with a stick, shame them into it or make them feel guilty. It has to come from the local. As we can see, that is difficult.It was not about a lack of money or a lack of ideas in the end, but a fear as to whether this leap could be made. What we in politics do on this issue now is important. We need to listen and ask people to help. We should not necessarily tell them what to do in a top-down way that suggests we know best. We should inspire people that this can be done.

We have a tough budget. The budgets are real and tight. They will be harsh because if Ministers are not meeting their budgets, they will have to change their policies. I hope they will be held to account by Oireachtas committees and the Climate Change Advisory Council. Reference was made earlier to budgets in respect of the financing aspects earlier but these budgets must be more significant if they are to have meaning, which I believe they will. We have a strong Act and good constitutional protection and provision to back it up. We in Irish politics are not the worst in how we are approaching this. We can learn by doing, by listening to each other and by getting down to delivering. This Government has three years to go. It is about delivery, delivery and delivery. I am looking forward to the meeting of the Cabinet subcommittee on environment and climate change next week. I will be going with ideas as to how to deliver quickly in the areas of sustainable mobility, offshore wind, retrofitting, just transition, land-use planning and climate communications, which is the most important matter. Very few emissions will be saved by anything we say here today but, if we do not get the story right and inspire our people to believe that we are going to be good at this, we will not meet our budgets. However, if we do, we will. That is why I am keen to work with the Seanad and councils across this country in the coming three years.