Government failing to meet inadequate carbon budget targets a major failure for government and Green Party
People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith has said that now is the time for a radical overhaul of the state’s climate action strategy, which has been shown to be an abject failure in the face of an epoch defining crisis- the climate crisis and rising emissions and temperatures.
She said that today’s report from the Climate Change Advisory Council has shown that Ireland is still a climate laggard, despite what the government leaders say.
She called for the government to implement policies like free, frequent, and green public transport- with a massive investment in buses and transport infrastructure across the country; to ban further provision of data centres; and to cut the dairy heard and incentivise small and family farms to restore biodiversity; and massive investment in retrofitting of homes and public buildings.
She said: “Today’s report from the Climate Change Advisory Council is extremely concerning reading, but it is not news. It its yet more confirmation of government and Green Party failure to tackle Ireland’s emissions. This government has not reduced emissions by any meaningful amount. We are set to reduce our emissions by 29% by 2030 which is way short of the reductions needed and legally binding. Ireland is still a climate laggard.
“We cannot continue to have Minister Ryan and the government string us along with vague promises that Ireland will meet its climate targets. What is happening is that the government is continuing to fail to meet its own inadequate climate targets while the world burns.
“What we need is for radical action on transport emissions through transformative investment in green public transport, that is free. We need to ban further construction of data centres which are gobbling up huge amounts of energy. And we need to tackle the issue of agricultural emissions- we need to cut the herd and incentivise small and family farms to become custodians of biodiversity; along with the need to retrofit our housing and building stock.”
