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E-mailIt was disappointing to see your columnist, Diarmuid Doyle, last Sunday engage in another rant about the Green Party in government. Now he claims we are doing more harm than good to the argument that climate change is a serious issue.
Firstly, it might have helped had he checked his facts on the Stern Report. Rather than claiming no one alive at present will experience the worst effects of climate change, Stern asserted many may be permanently displaced by rising sea levels, heavier floods and drought by the middle of this century.
As for my own party's performance in combating climate change, all he could do was mention a few current proposals. He conveniently forgot to mention the significant measures introduced in just 15 months of government.
To name but a few: in the Department of the Environment John Gormley has already reformed VRT and motor tax to encourage people to buy more fuel-efficient cars. These measures are already reducing average fuel consumption of new cars. John Gormley also implemented new building regulations to increase energy efficiency in buildings by 40% and paved the way for a ban on energy inefficient light bulbs which will reduce Ireland's carbon output each year by 700,000 tonnes.
To reduce our energy consumption in the decades to come he has introduced new planning guidelines to prevent unsustainable development and sprawl. He has also increased investment in water services to prevent the waste in resources we have seen for years. The public awareness campaign he has set in train will prove vital in getting us all to think about our lifestyle choices and their consequences for global warming.
Regarding the minister for energy, all Doyle could do was claim the minister wants to penalise people for using electricity. A quick bit of research would have shown him that Eamon Ryan has already expanded old and introduced new energy-saving schemes in areas like insulation and retro-fitting. He has provided new supports for renewable energy generation and research (including €22bn investment in this area by the ESB). The roll-out of SMART meters has begun and will help people reduce their bills by cutting back on energy use; the facilitation of introducing net metering will allow customers sell renewable energy back into the electricity grid.
He has also provided a stable environment for energy enterprises such as wind farms, biomass and anaerobic digester power plants.
If Doyle really does believe climate change is a serious issue he should recognise the Green Party's delivery of radical changes in government policy. Let's have the facts and not fiction. Most people recognise the Green Party is policy driven. We entered government because of the critical need to implement our policies. This we are doing. No amount of ill-informed commentary will derail our commitment.
The next time Diarmuid Doyle wants to check our report card in government I can help him check his facts.
Mary White TD,
Green Party deputy leader,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.
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If the Green Party members and programmes were approved by a recognised scientific professional organisation they would not be boasting of the €22bn investment by the ESB they promoted to double our grid by an extra 5,000 km and allow for an increase in wind energy from 800 MW to 6,000 MW. Each wind MW will cost €2m, so we are facing an additional bill of €10.4bn for the turbines adding to our landscape the visual impact of some 2,500 additional turbines.
This parallel renewables grid will only deliver any reasonable power when the wind strength is between two and four times our average wind strength, which doesn't statistically happen very much. So for an investment in the range of €30bn we are going to get the pricely benefit of reducing our CO2 emissions by four million tonnes per annum, a maximum of 5% of what the country currently discharges not to mention that we live on a planet that discharges 49,000 million tonnes per annum. Cleverly we will have also made our existing grid required for the extensive periods when there isn't enough wind much more inefficient and prone to power trips.