Earth Day conference challenges political parties on their climate action plans

Representatives from seven political parties laid out their views on climate action

As Earth Day is celebrated today, 22nd April, representatives from seven Irish political parties laid out their views on climate action during a major conference hosted by Friends of the Earth on the theme of Faster and Fairer Climate Action [1]. The panel, which was chaired by Irish Times writer and duty editor, Hugh Linehan, challenged political parties to set out what they would do to reduce Ireland’s polluting emissions quickly enough to keep within the emissions limits adopted by the Dáil and fairly enough to leave no one behind. 

All the parties represented voted for the 2021 climate law, and in 2022 voted to adopt the binding limits on national emissions in the Carbon Budgets for 2021-2025 and 2026-2030 adopted by the Dáil and Seanad. Ireland’s emissions reduction obligations under EU agreements are broadly similar. 

Speaking on behalf of their parties were Senator Lynn Boylan (Sinn Féin), Jennifer Whitmore TD (Social Democrats), Senator Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fáil), Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit), Ivana Bacik TD (Labour), Richard Bruton TD (Fine Gael) and Patrick Costello (Green Party). 

Jennifer Whitmore TD (Social Democrats) said: 

“The problem [causing climate change] is our economic system; climate change and biodiversity loss is just a symptom of that economic system. Our economic model is not compatible with a healthy planet. 

“I don’t think that many people are anti-climate action, they just feel really left behind by our economic system. It’s because this system has not been providing for people, not providing things like housing, that people get disaffected. Environment needs to be threaded through everything we do, we can’t look at it on its own, we need to look at the economic and political system and how we look after people and when we do that the environmental benefits will fall into place.”

“A key problem is that there is a lot of spin from the Government about shallow measures they are taking but the deep level system change is not happening and we are not going to meet our targets. We are not doing what we need to do, we are not quick enough or ambitious enough, and that needs to change.”

Senator Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fáil) said: 

"The [Climate] action plan sets out sector by sector targets we must reach and we need to stick with that. 

"There is a responsibility on those of us in politics to focus on the issue, not the politics.

"It would be very easy for parties to do a flip-flop on issues like climate or migration now but that would be doing our country a disservice, the centre must hold…we must bring in policies, backed by funding, to bring down emissions

"The Fridays for Future youth campaigns were really effective because it’s when citizens talk to us, that has a real impact. Activism needs to focus on particular changes that need to be made, we need a move away from just environmentalists or academics, it needs to involve all groups, we need to drive the debate down into communities. 

"Farmers get climate change more than ever this year, they get it in relation to flooding but they need support to make the changes." 

Paul Murphy TD (People Before Profit) said:

“This isn’t about urban versus rural, it’s about rich versus poor. It’s not small farmers who are causing huge pollution, it's massive dairy farmers. This [climate change] problem is the responsibility of a tiny minority of people who control the economy. The majority of people are in favour of paying farmers to farm in a sustainable way. Farmers have been paid and incentivised to farm in a polluting way. We should pay and incentivize small farmers to engage in regenerative agriculture and farm in a sustainable way. Climate action needs to make people’s lives easier and better, not harder. We have an emergency and we need to act like it’s an emergency. 

"It’s not about knowledge, it’s about power which is in the hands of a very small few who are very rich and enormously politically powerful ... .We need to take them out of power and that means system change. We are heading for absolute disaster and we need a very radical shift to avoid catastrophe.”

Speaking about his Bill to ban advertising of fossil fuels, and fossil fuelled vehicles, which People Before Profit is launching today, Paul Murphy TD added:

“When you become aware of it, car advertising is absolutely dominant. It’s always a false picture, it’s not a picture of you sitting in your car getting frustrated for an hour in traffic, it’s a picture of you safe and secure on a road with no one else on it. The majority of cars being sold today are not only still fossil fuel driven but the majority are [energy guzzling] SUVs. We’re about to launch a bill on fossil fuel advertising, I think it will have an enormous impact. Capitalism has the ability to make us buy things we didn’t previously want. A large part of the energy used by data centres is to get you to buy things you didn’t previously want.”

Ivana Bacik TD (Labour) said: 

"I’ve always described myself as a “green Red" because we need significant state intervention to deliver climate action and public services, in housing and in public transport. Labour has proposed a nine euro climate ticket to give people unlimited public transport journeys for a set fee per month. That is a core premise of a just transition, we need to bring people with us and ensure that people have better lives. 

"Across Ireland there are great projects like the Bride project in Cork and the Burrenbeo project in Clare.

"Young people such as the school strike movement are very inspiring. But we can’t leave it to young people - younger generations are driving a lot of the activism but we need people of all ages involved. It’s good to see polling showing that climate action is as important to people as ever because we all need to get involved.”

Richard Bruton TD (Fine Gael) said:

“We now have a state led offshore renewable strategy - that is a new approach, a state led approach to what Leo Varadkar described as our moonshot. For the first time farm emissions have come down with reductions in fertiliser use although that could be due to the cost of fertiliser.

"The circular economy strategy has a lot of benefits to it. It forces you to think about design, can we meet our travel needs, our accommodation needs, more intelligently? Our choice of cars, the size of our cars, whether we share our cars. We should design the way we use cars differently.

"There is a cross government responsibility for climate action. We can’t slink back and say that it’s Eamon Ryan’s idea or Eamon’ Ryan’s responsibility."

Senator Lynn Boylan (Sinn Féin) said:

“People aren’t stupid, they want to see fairness and that’s not the case at the moment. Sinn Féin’s policy on retrofitting is in an area-based, tiered system so that more people would qualify for fully paid grants while those earning over €100,000 would not get grants but could still access low cost loans. Also the same with solar grants, where your income is taken into account.

The key for public transport is that it needs to be reliable as well as sustainable.

The agriculture debate is always framed as putting environmentalists and farmers into silos - we need to talk about it in a more intelligent way. 

If we don’t reduce carbon emissions and while also reducing poverty at the same time then we are failing society; we must bring fairness to policies.”

Patrick Costello (Green Party) said: 

“Some of the criticisms we’ve just heard are shared by members of the [Green] party. But we’re not in Government on our own. Changes are happening, but are they happening fast enough, maybe not? Or in a just way, that’s part of the tension. These tensions are not just a Green Party thing, they are the reality of being in Government

"I think there is an issue of trust in politics in general. One of the things that undermines trust is that there are a lot of flip-flops already happening. On councils across the country there are councillors [from parties that say they support more investment in public transport] doing their best to undermine public transport and undermine active travel.

"There are very real positives and benefits to most people for investing in the green transition. Huge numbers of people die due to air pollution every year; if we have better public transport, if we stop burning coal and turf, we can reduce those deaths. 

"We need to have a conversation with farmers, we need to engage with farmers. The status quo cannot continue, we need to have a conversation about how we make change happen.”

The conference also heard from Professor Hannah Daly, who warned of the danger of being distracted by false solutions before setting out how Ireland can rapidly decarbonise to meet our carbon budgets. The five measures outlined by Professor Daly would take Ireland up to 90% of the way towards our 2030 emission reductions target [2] . Also presenting at the conference was Dr Kevin Cunnningham, Lecturer in TU Dublin and MD of Ireland Thinks, who presented new polling data which found that the majority of people in Ireland remain very concerned about climate change and are solidly supportive of government action to cut polluting emissions [3]. 

The conference also included a second panel discussion chaired by Ella McSweeney, which heard from civil society voices “Speaking up for Faster and Fairer Climate Action”, including people working with older people, women’s community groups, a farmer, and Bohemians football club. 

This afternoon at the conference Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan TD, will deliver a keynote speech on “Our Energy Future”. This will be followed by a panel discussion between representatives of the renewables industry and nature NGOs about how we meet the twin challenges of climate breakdown and biodiversity loss by accelerating renewable energy deployment while also ensuring environmental protection.

ENDS

Notes 

1. The full conference programme can be viewed here. 

2. See a summary of the research presented by Prof Hannah Daly here and a copy of the slide deck she presented here.

3. Friends of the Earth today released a separate press release which outlines the key findings of Dr Kevin Cunningham’s polling research - that press release can be viewed here.