Bríd Smith welcomes statements from IPCC representatives at Climate Action committee due to take place at 2pm
IPCC reps remarks show that Ireland should press ahead and pass the Climate Emergency Bill
People Before Profit TD Bríd Smith has welcomed the opening statements (attached) from the IPCC representatives who will speak at the Climate Action Committee, today at 2pm. She has said that the statements from the witnesses show the need to pass the Climate Emergency Bill to ban the issuing of further fossil fuel licences.
She said that she welcomes the opening statement from Prof. Sonia Seneviratne who demonstrated the urgency for the need to reduce emissions and the dramatic effect human-induced climate change is having on the planet- from floods to forest fires and droughts.
The TD said that the remarks around Irish agricultural policy presented by Pierre-Marie Aubert (PhD) show that our current agricultural policy is not sustainable and under its current makeup will leave us well short of our CO2 obligations for 2020, 2030 and 2050.
Bríd Smith said: “I welcome the opening remarks from the representatives from the IPCC. They have shown us the absolute urgency which the issue of climate change and emissions need to be looked at.
“What the witnesses have shown to us in their opening statements is that the level of change regarding emissions requires huge changes to meet our targets up to 2030 and 2050. They have shown us the terrible effects of human-induced climate change across the world- forest fires in California, droughts, floods etc.
“Ireland’s agricultural policy has to change. We have to reduce herd numbers. Increasing the herd numbers, which seems to be the government policy will only contribute to our CO2 emissions. For the government to talk about taking an all of governments approach to fighting climate change and increasing herd numbers is totally contradictory and detrimental to our climate goals.
“What the government could do which could really help in the fight against climate change would be to pass the Climate Emergency Bill to ban any further issuing of licences for the exploration of fossil fuels. This is urgently needed and would set Ireland up as a world leader in the fight against climate change instead of us remaining as laggards.
“We can see from all over the world with increasingly extreme weather, species extinction as outlined in the Living Planet Report, and the IPCC report that time is running out.”