Green Party in Government rams through legislation to enable new LNG infrastructure.
The Planning & Development Bill 2023 which has just passed includes last-minute Government amendments that designate liquefied natural gas (LNG) as ‘strategic infrastructure’. It mean LNG planning applications will be fast-tracked through the planning process.
People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith says “It says everything about the Green Party in Government with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for over four years that it ends with them trying to ram through laws to enable new fossil fuel infrastructure.
This flows from the Government’s Energy Security Review that reported last November. The review made clear that the Government’s main concern is to ensure an even greater energy supply for the continued unlimited growth of energy-hungry data centres. Essentially, their needs were prioritised over the far more important goals of decarbonisation and reducing energy usage. Now we see what this means in reality – the building of new LNG infrastructure
In 2021, all the Green Party TDs not only voted against, but ridiculed the need for People Before Profit’s Planning and Development (Climate Emergency Measures) (Amendment) Bill 2023 that would have banned LNG infrastructure. Now we will see if the Green Party will vote for new LNG infrastructure in the Dáil this evening. If they do, they will do so just as more effects of the climate crisis will be unfolding on our screens as category 5 hurricane Milton, one of the most intense hurricanes on record, closes in on Florida, with potentially catastrophic consequences.
People Before Profit Climate & Environment Spokesperson, Paul Murphy TD said “Anyone who had any remaining illusions in the Green Party will be relieved of those illusions today. The years of greenwashing end with the ramming through of LNG, just as new research published last week in the Energy Science & Engineering journal, shows it’s even worse than burning coal.
The failure of the Green Party could not be any clearer. Instead of greenwashing, we need a radically different, ecosocialist approach based on public ownership of the energy system, reducing overall energy use and driving a just transition to 100% renewable energy”.
