Greens making a very difficult task even harder for themselves

This was the most significant week for the Green Party since the Government was formed. The amended Climate Action Bill published by the three leaders of the Coalition on Tuesday represents an achievement of politics and persistence for Green leader and Minister for Climate Action Eamon Ryan. It is as good, or better, than the party could have hoped for when it decided to take the plunge last year. This is why the Greens entered Government. Indeed, as my colleague Harry McGee noted during the week, it is why many of them entered politics.

Strange, then, that the Greens also chose this week to demonstrate that it is just as riven by internal strife and rivalry as any other party. The decision by the its collective leadership to deny Dublin Lord Mayor Hazel Chu the chance to run for the Seanad (in an election she stood little chance of winning) might have been rather petty and pointless. But Chu’s decision to run as an independent, and the co-operation with her of a goodly chunk of the parliamentary party, widened an already deep and probably irreconcilable split that cannot but be destructive of the party’s agenda.

The two factions within the Greens, of course, view themselves as different to the other. But that is not how they are seen from the outside. Politicians often lose sight of just how disinterested most of the world is in their squabbles. From the outside, they’re not seen as the Ryan faction and the Chu faction – just as the Green Party. And looking in from the outside, you’d have to ask: does the party really want to do this climate action stuff? Or do they want to fight with one another about the Seanad byelection?

The country music singer and detective novelist Kinky Friedman once wrote about the time he told his mother he wanted to be a country music star when he grew up. Well, son, you’d better make up your mind, she replied, because you can’t do both. Time for the Greens to decide whether it wants to play at politics or make a difference.

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Discipline, purpose, unity and a ruthless capacity to prioritise – qualities not, to put it mildly, in evidence in this week’s uncivil war – will be needed if the party is to realise its ambitions.

Priorities

This legislation is a significant step because, according to one person centrally involved and with a long experience of government, it elevates the climate issue above other policy concerns of Government. It gives the issue, this person says, the sort of “above everything” status that Northern Ireland had in the governments led by Bertie Ahern; something that transcends other priorities, and crucially is beyond interference by the departments of finance and public expenditure.

The legislation sets legally binding targets – and, as Friends of the Earth pointed out – stipulates that the legal obligation is not simply to try to meet the target, but to actually achieve it. But it doesn’t set out the measures needed to reach it. It’s not like the job is done. In fact, it’s hardly started.

To get a sense of the enormity of this task, think about this: last year, when almost the entire economy was shut down for six months, national emissions fell by about 6 per cent. That’s less (in percentage terms) than they will have to fall by each year until 2030 to achieve the 50 per cent target. It is a task that seems near impossible to many.

Actually, the proposed reduction is not – technically, at least – impossible. The existing climate plan has seen much of the easy stuff done; the department tells me that 78 per cent of its recommendations have been implemented, though the big structural stuff that does the heavy lifting in reducing emissions is either only starting or hasn’t started in any meaningful way.

That plan is being updated. There is also an unpublished roadmap of sorts drawn up by McKinsey consultants for the department during the government formation process a year ago. The document shows that the 50 per cent target is technically achievable – but also extremely difficult.

It is a fearsomely complex business. But the simple version is that the way we do agriculture, how we get around and how we keep ourselves warm at home will have to change dramatically if carbon emissions are to be reduced by the required amount. Fewer cows, more electric and public transport journeys and better insulation – all good ideas but which will entail serious inconvenience and cost to people on a scale that has not yet been grasped.

Think about home retrofitting, for one example. About 1.6 million homes will need to be equipped with better insulation; 160,000 a year if we start now – on top of what the construction industry is currently doing. A decade and a half sounds ambitious. And what about the cost? At – say – €20,000 per house, that’s €32 billion.

Electric cars, for another. The target is to have one million electric cars on the road (out of about two million) by 2030. Last year, about 90,000 new cars were registered; 4,000 of them were electric. To make any in-roads into this target, electric cars will have to get much cheaper and petrol and diesel cars – and their fuel – more expensive. That will not be popular.

Achieving the carbon targets – or anything like them – will require, I think, three things: tonnes of money, sustained political will and public willingness to make significant changes.

Of these, perhaps the last will be the most difficult. There is simply no way that climate action measures can avoid conflict with one of most enduring principles of policymaking in Ireland – that nobody should be inconvenienced by anything. If that tendency endures, the climate plan will never get off the ground.