Government position keeps door open for support for LNG
Minister’s contradictory position could see state locked into fossil gas use for decades
People Before Profit TD, Bríd Smith, has condemned the reply this morning from Minister Ryan to a parliamentary question on the possibility if LNG infrastructure in the state as “an extraordinary betrayal of the climate movement and a denial of the climate science.”
Deputy Smith asked the Climate Minister, and Green Party leader, to clarify the Government’s position following recent statements on a possible LNG terminal in the state.
Minister Ryan said that “all options must be looked at” including nuclear power.
Reacting to the exchange, Bríd Smith TD said:
“The climate movement needs to hear this reply and understand its implications- the Green Party Climate Action Minister did not once mention the climate crisis in his reply and seems to believe that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could be a justification for building an LNG terminal here to process fossil gas from the US or Qatar.
“The fact that this means the death of any hope of reaching the Paris targets, or his own Government’s targets on emission reductions, doesn’t seem to have occurred to him and it ignores the IPCC plea for an end to new fossil fuel infrastructure and the decommissioning of existing infrastructure if we are to stop catastrophic climate change.”
Deputy Smith pointed out the contradiction in the Green Party tabling a bill to ban LNGs while their Minister is publicly stating he may support them.
She added: “The attempt to use the Russian invasion of Ukraine to push further fossil fuel infrastructure is a threat to the future of a living planet- that is clear from this week’s IPCC report. What is extraordinary is not that the industry and vested interests would try to use this crisis for their own profits, but that our Green Party Minister would go along with with the idea of increasing fossil fuel infrastructure in this country.
“We don’t need LNGs or nuclear, we need radical policies that understand the science and act to reduce demand and ensure investment in renewables in the time we have left to avert a runaway disaster. The Minister’s reply this morning is a wake-up call for the climate movement in this country.”