Senator Michael McDowell has said complying with climate change must not “become an absolute religion” and that Ireland cannot become “some kind of green equivalent of an Islamic republic in pursuit of some purist idea.”
Speaking on the Climate Bill, the former Justice Minister also said that the desire of the Green Party to ensure Ireland took a leadership role in relation to Climate needed to be tempered with realism.
Michael McDowell throwing some cold water on exuberance about the climate bill, and calls for a pragmatic approach not involving sacrificing the economy in an attempt to be a good example.
"We can't turn ourselves into some sort of green equivalent of the Islamic Republic". pic.twitter.com/rld1b6fqxC— JRD (@JRD0000) June 21, 2021
Senator McDowell said he wanted to address “some of the language that is being used about Ireland and Ireland’s role in the whole question of environmental sustainability”.
He said: the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and his colleagues have spoken in this House about Ireland having a leadership role and about Ireland having the most ambitious legislation on this. I want to temper this with realism. What Ireland does one way or the other, apart from moral example, is probably infinitesimally insignificant. We must temper our ambitions in climate change with the actual economic consequences for our society .”
“We cannot turn ourselves into some kind of green equivalent of an Islamic republic in pursuit of some purist ideal,” he told the Senate. “I will instance one example. In the previous Seanad I was a member of the climate committee. We spent a lot of time talking about the roll-out of Internet access across the State. One of the things I raised constantly over the three years was the whole question of data centres. I constantly got the same message back from the Department there represented, which was, in effect, flannel. It never actually faced up to the proposition that the Irish State’s industrial policy was to attract into Ireland data centres that were going to gobble up 30% or 35% of our electricity output.”
It is in that context I make the following point. There is a lack of reality in regard to our energy policies. I do not want to comment on any individual case, but the wind farms are being knocked this way and that in the Four Courts. I do not see how we are going to comply with a policy that is designed to electrify the whole country. If all power depends on electricity and transport is, in the major part in urban areas at the very least, electric I do not see how we are pursuing a strategy in regard to electric power that will keep us functioning as an economy. I want that on the record.,” he explained.
“We are speaking with forked tongue in some respects in saying that we want sustainable energy generation. I welcome offshore wind farms, but God only knows what group will emerge to try to stop them. It will not be the fishermen, but some other group that will take the view they are dangerous to sea birds, swans or migrating birds and so on. I would like to see some reality in that regard.”
He also said that “the proposed electrification of our road transport is not an excuse to stop building roads.”
“If trucks and cars are powered by hydrogen so be it; they have to travel some way. The journey to Donegal, Derry or Letterkenny should not take five or six hours. It should be possible to do it in four hours. That is the type of progress that makes Ireland a better place in which to do business and it brings regional balance in this country as well. I ask the enthusiastic Green Party members here today to bear in mind that road infrastructure is important and that rail infrastructure is not the answer to everything. In fact, it is an odds-against answer for most purposes. It may be good for commuting into the city of Dublin and for particular main trunk routes, and the Dublin-Belfast rail route might benefit from further investment, but we must proceed with our road infrastructure too,” he said.