There is something unsettling about Green Party leader Eamon Ryan’s pen picture of himself as the genial man on the bike exhorting everyone in Ireland to grow more lettuce in window boxes.
This is particularly so when you consider that Ryan may well have a carbon footprint way in excess of the average Irish person.
A cursory examination of Eamon Ryan’s own work schedule in recent months shows him to be an inveterate flyer and carbon emitter. In March of this year, he flew to Singapore, Hong Kong, Beijing and Shanghai to mark St. Patrick Day. The journey there and back is estimated to have accounted for the emission of 4.52 metric tonnes of carbon. In September, he flew to New York to address the U.N. on climate issues – that accounted for an additional 1.80 tonnes.
By the way, the average Irish person emits about 12.8 tonnes of carbon in an entire year but these two trips alone amounted to about 6.32 tonnes of carbon. These figures do not include travel to the COP28 conference in Dubai, the rest of his work schedule or indeed carbon emissions from his own private life. The inconvenient Green truth is that Eamon Ryan is probably a member of Ireland’s exclusive super carbon emitter club.
Yet, contradictions seem to be at the heart of what it means to be a Green Party supporter in Ireland these days. Reducing usage of fossil fuels makes a lot of sense from an environmental and economic point of view but surely any transition to other sources of energy must be managed and it is the Greens themselves who appear to be most opposed to any such managed transition.
There is widespread acceptance of the fact that wind, as a variable power source, needs a back-up power generation system. At present, this relies on fossil fuels such as gas although given the opposition by the Green Party to the proposed LNG facility in North Kerry, it is the Greens who are doing most to frustrate the development of that same backup.
It’s much the same with the development of the Barryroe oil field off the coast of Cork. The simple reality is that it is unlikely that there will be any feasible alternative to fossil fuels before 2050 so moral grandstanding gestures like bans on oil exploration or blocking the development of proven reserves at Barryroe only show how opposed to a sustainable and managed transition many of these people are.
We’ve been here before – a ban on Irish peat extraction might win brownie points for some but that means that the peat is now simply imported with additional carbon miles. Not developing the Barryroe oil reserves simply means paying Arabs and others for something we could supply ourselves.
It’s worth remembering that, with the outbreak of war in Ukraine, Germany – home of the European Green movement – had no problem with restarting many of its coal-powered electricity generating plants. There is a sense that Ireland’s Greens would sooner let Irish people freeze rather than re-start its peat power plants. Not only that, they would in all probability be flying around the globe to climate conferences boasting about it too.
Ireland has committed to a 51% reduction in greenhouse gases by 2030. Yet, this is at a time when the number of people – the carbon end users – is actually increasing. The Irish population increased from about 3.9 million in 2002 to 5 million in 2022 making this emission reduction target more difficult if not impossible.
Yet, the Green Party continues to actively promote the most destructive form of population increase of all in the form of economic migrants and refugees most of whom are entirely dependent on the State for all services. Meanwhile, the same Greens complain that Ireland is not doing enough and demand even more cuts to carbon emissions.
That most people applying for political asylum in Ireland now are not fleeing war is widely accepted. Nevertheless, Green Party Roderic O Gorman’s department continues relentlessly in its mission to place these same illegal migrants in towns and villages throughout the length and breadth of Ireland.
Equally, what started out as a humanitarian project aimed at assisting Ukrainians in the war-afflicted eastern part of that country has quickly evolved into what now looks like a massive tourism welfare scam for Ukrainians from safe parts of that vast country as well as those in other European countries.
O Gorman’s ‘ally’ in all of this is not the local philanthropist but rather the local gombeen man who, seeing a state-backed cash cow, has worked tirelessly to close the local hotel and repurpose it as an asylum or refugee centre. Indeed, there is something ironic in the fact that many of these asylum contractors’ ultimate dream of a top of the range gas-guzzling SUV is being enabled by none other than Green ideologue Roderic O Gorman.
Needless to say, O Gorman’s closure of much of the country’s tourist accommodation stock has had a devastating impact on local economies affecting downstream employers such as restaurants, pubs and visitor attractions.
Another effect was evident this summer when, with the removal of the budget accommodation sector in many areas, holidaying in Ireland became unaffordable not just for visitors from overseas but Irish people as well. Those Irish people taking to the planes for a holiday also included the same Greens whose policies were instrumental in forcing people to holiday overseas in the first place.
In the best Green tradition, there were the usual delusional offsets such as promising yourself to use paper straws while on holiday or having a Refugees Welcome banner in your social media bio. No one, it seems, quite does useless gestures like Ireland’s Greens.
The COP28 climate conference in Dubai provides Ireland’s long haul Greens with yet another opportunity to wear their concerned faces and once again remind the Irish people that they have to do better.
But surely, even they must now realise that the greatest impediment to the sensible Green aim of reducing carbon emissions now comes from …. other contradictory Green policies. Perhaps, after all, it’s Ireland’s Green Party which needs to do better.