LIMERICK Green Party TD Brian Leddin, who is chairman of the Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action, addressed two prestigious international conferences in Paris in recent weeks.
The first was the Conference on the Strategic Economic Autonomy of the European Union and was hosted by the French Senate at the Palace du Luxembourg.
Deputy Leddin said: “We are seeing how the war in Ukraine has severely impacted energy and food supplies in Ireland and across the European Union. Both the war and the climate crisis have exposed fundamental vulnerabilities in these areas that must be resolved.
“At the conferences, I was able to report that Ireland can provide clean renewable energy to Europe using interconnection and development of a hydrogen economy, so that we are not dependent on despots and dictators. Limerick and the Mid West will be the centre of this effort.”
Deputy Leddin also spoke at the Global Parliamentary Network which launched its third and final section of the comprehensive review of climate science on Monday, drawing on the work of thousands of scientists.
“This critical report makes for very grim reading, but it lists out what’s needed to avert climate disaster. According to the report the world has only 30 months for global greenhouse gas emissions to finally start to fall. The IPCC report states that existing and currently planned fossil fuel projects are already more than the climate can handle.
“The message that I wanted to deliver to OECD members is that systemic changes rather than marginal changes in our society are required,” he said.
