On the day the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a “code red for humanity” report on catastrophic climate breakdown caused by human activity, Galway County Council granted Apple extended planning permission for an environmentally disastrous data centre in Athenry.
Adrian Curran, People Before Profit representative for Galway said:
“The IPCC released its 6th assessment report, and it is alarming. Based on a study of 14,000 scientific reports, it says human-caused warming is ‘already affecting many weather and climate extremes in every region across the globe’. The report estimates that we will reach the very dangerous level of 1.5C of warming by 2034, and possibly earlier, generating extreme events ‘unprecedented in the historical record’.
“Just 100 corporations are responsible for 70% of emissions. Continual growth driven by profit-seeking corporations and the greed of billionaires has brought us to the brink of catastrophe.
“The change we urgently need will never come from the wealthy or the political elite. They are invested and embedded in the existing economic and power system. At most they will pay lip service while playing for time to protect their interests. This cannot be tolerated.
“This is evident in the Green Party. They used the urgency of the climate crisis to argue that they had to enter government with Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. Yet in government the Greens are presiding over the expansion of data centres. With over 70 data centres currently operating and a 25% increase in their expansion in Ireland in the last year alone, by 2030 these centres will consume 30% of the state’s total electricity demand, swallowing over half of any increase in renewable energy in the next decade.
“Many people have been misled into thinking Apple’s Athenry project would bring vital jobs to the area. In reality its benefits for Athenry are doubtful. These vast warehouses do not provide plentiful or sustainable employment as they need limited maintenance, and they also create few secondary jobs.
“Real climate action would create tens of thousands of green and care jobs to ensure a rapid and just transition to a zero-carbon economy – building and retrofitting homes, rewetting bogs, planting forests, teaching children and caring for patients.
“People Before Profit put forward the Climate Emergency Measures Bill, which would place an absolute ban on new data centres during the period of the climate emergency – a glaring omission from the government’s recent Climate Bill. Ireland will house a huge percentage of global data centres at the present rate of development, and they are utterly unsustainable.
“Either we are serious on climate or not. Facilitating more data centres means we are not.”
