Eamon Ryan: Climate plan is a milestone. It is not an end in itself

If one message resonated out of Cop26 this week it was this: “No more soundbites, no more empty rhetoric, no more blah, blah, blah.”

The science is indisputable and the effects already clear. Action is what people want.

The Climate Action Plan we launched this week is the first time an Irish government has outlined how we can get to carbon neutrality by the middle of the century.

But with hundreds of actions, across many sectors, affecting everyone, it’s fair to ask how it will be delivered.

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One thing is certain: this plan will only succeed if we make the public investments necessary and if we bring people with us. Some things can be driven by Government through the €165 billion National Development Plan: putting in the framework to deliver offshore wind power at scale, funding electric buses (including in rural Ireland) and ending the installation of fossil heating systems in public buildings.

Others need people to make decisions to make changes in their own lives – but Government needs to empower and support them. I believe we can do that, and that people will respond.

At the height of the Covid pandemic we brought in a taxi scrappage scheme to give drivers some financial assistance and encourage them to move to electric vehicles. We weren’t sure how or even if it would work. It took off, and I’ve been in several taxis recently where the drivers extolled the virtues of electric vehicles, because they see on a daily basis what they save on fuel.

Catch on

When change starts to catch on in an industry it can spread very quickly. The total cost of ownership calculation is making electric vehicles more and more attractive when you include grants, rebates and fuel savings. We know everyone can’t do this yet, but it’s on the way to being a more viable option.

With retrofitting we are giving certainty to the industry, increasing apprenticehips so we have enough workers, and designing loan schemes that will make it more affordable to householders. As with taxis and electric vehicles, I believe this sector is about to take off. We are already providing free upgrades to low-income and social homes from ringfenced income from the carbon tax, and the budget for this work will increase in the coming years.

Some commentators have said it was a good day for the Green Party. Having worked on these issues for 30 years it's certainly satisfying to see this kind of progress, but what happened this week belongs to everyone

In agriculture, farmers know that it’s time for action, and many have begun playing their part by cutting fertiliser use or diversifying into organic agriculture. The right mix of incentives will be critical so we can keep growing high-quality food and increase forestry so we protect nature as well as farmers’ incomes.

There are challenges in every part of this plan, and it needs every part of Government to work together to deliver it, but I believe we are rising to that challenge.

Since the launch of the Climate Action Plan, some commentators have said it was a good day for the Green Party. Having worked on these issues for 30 years it’s certainly satisfying to see this kind of progress, but what happened this week belongs to everyone – to climate activists, to the Citizens’ Assembly, to the Oireachtas joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action and to our Government partners. We have as a country to make a collective decision to go in a new direction.

Honest

We need to be honest with people and admit there is uncertainty about how some of this will evolve. We don’t know know how all the technologies will develop, but we do know we have to get carbon out of the atmosphere.

It will mean asking people for help, not telling them what to do. It’s about listening to our hearts as well as our heads, connecting what is a global challenge back down to our local environment. Joining the dots. Making changes and connections in ways that build our communities and ensuring a just transition.

This plan is a milestone. It is not an end in itself.

It is right to compare what is happening now – a move from an unsustainable economy to a sustainable one – to the transformation that started under Lemass in the 1960s with the opening up of the economy

What this plan does, with its deadlines and responsible agencies, is allow us to see what is working and what isn’t.

And every year, as the Climate Action Plan is updated, we will adjust our actions and adjust our ambition in each area to make things work. This is the future, for this Government, and the next, and every government, right up to 2050.

It is right to compare what is happening now – a move from an unsustainable economy to a sustainable one – to the transformation that started under Lemass in the 1960s with the opening up of the economy.

But it wasn’t just the decision to open up that really paid off for Ireland. It was the 20 years of political consensus that followed which led to Ireland joining the European community, developing the social partnership model and embracing inward investment.

We need this strong political consensus again over the coming decades.

We can disagree, politically, about how we deal with this challenge, where the emphasis will be, what sectors will do what. But through the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Bill and this plan, every Irish government will have to deliver a steady course towards carbon neutrality.

No more soundbites, no more empty rhetoric, no more blah blah blah.

Eamon Ryan is leader of the Green Party and Minister for Environment, Climate and Communications and Transport