Leo Varadkar’s climate choice: Vandal or Vanguard

Less than two years ago, the Climate Change Performance Index ranked Ireland bottom of the EU league table, and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the European Parliament that we were “laggards”. Ireland is close to having a good story to tell about its recent progress on climate action and energy transition, but recent Government decisions threaten this, writes Oisín Coghlan, Director of Friends of the Earth.

The policy process — with the Citizens’ Assembly and the special all-party Oireachtas Committee shaping the Climate Action Plan and the forthcoming NECP — has been an innovative response by the political system to reputational risk, growing public concern and civil society campaigning.

Meanwhile, even as national emissions continued to rise, the parliamentary arithmetic since the 2016 General Election has meant that opposition bills that could command a Dáil majority can eventually become law, with all-party support to ban fracking and divest the sovereign wealth fund (the ISIF) from fossil fuels. Moreover, a Dáil vote recently made Ireland only the second country to declare a Climate Emergency.

Yet, recent government decisions, on Just Transition and oil and gas exploration, have completely overshadowed this progress, and threaten even more damage to Ireland’s climate reputation.

The crisis facing fossil fuel workers in Clare and the Midlands was entirely foreseeable and avoidable. It is now 21 years since consultants, hired by government, advised that we plan to stop burning peat and coal for electricity, in order to meet our 2010 emissions targets. Recent economic growth across Europe was always likely to increase the carbon price for burning coal at Moneypoint. The plan to extend peat burning for another decade after direct subsidies end this year, by burning it with imported biomass, was always likely to collapse under the weight of its absurd unsustainability, as evidenced by recent decisions by the EPA, An Bord Pleanála and the courts.

Despite repeated calls from the trade unions, and the clear recommendation of the all-party Oireachtas Committee, the Government has refused to sit down with the trade unions, the state-owned ESB and Bord na Móna, the affected communities, and other stakeholders to plan for a Just Transition. Instead, the Government is tinkering with review groups at NESC. As a result of this bafflingly inept policy and politics, we are entering a disorderly exit from coal and peat-fired generation.

Even more baffling than the Government’s failure to plan to get out of coal and peat generation is its continued determination to get into oil and gas exploration. Fine Gael has used an arcane parliamentary procedure called a “money message” to block debate on the Climate Emergency Bill, despite two Dáil votes to progress the Bill to amendment stage. The Bill would end the issuing of new licences for exploration in Irish waters.

We know 80 per cent of existing fossil fuel reserves have to stay in the ground to give us a decent chance of staying under 2oC of global warming, the minimum goal of the Paris Agreement. So the Government’s position is either that they don’t expect the Paris Agreement to be honoured or that they expect Saudi Arabia or Russia to leave even more of their existing reserves in the ground so Ireland can corner some of the shrinking fossil fuel extraction market.

The first position is entirely immoral, the second is entirely implausible.

Meanwhile, the global climate movement and Greta Thunberg’s school strikers in particular have made limiting the production of fossil fuels the litmus test of serious climate action. Leaders like Macron and Arden have chosen to act. Others like Trump and Brazil’s Bolsonaro are still in the “drill, baby, drill” camp.

As the Taoiseach heads to New York for the UN Secretary General’s climate action summit he has to decide which side he is on. His real business at the UN in September is to canvas for votes in the UN General Assembly – the world’s parliament – to elect Ireland to the Security Council. Part of Ireland’s pitch is as a champion of climate dialogue. This lacks all credibility when you won’t talk to the trade unions about Just Transition and you won’t let your national parliament debate what a Climate Emergency means for oil and gas exploration.

Mr Varadkar still has a chance to join the climate vanguard, but so far, he is choosing to side with the climate vandals.