The updated Climate Action Plan was approved by the Cabinet and published on Wednesday. It promises to “change Ireland for the better,” and if there is one thing that ought to get your spidey senses tingling it is when someone tells you are they going to make Ireland or the world better. If chaps like Chairman Mao had concentrated on making his poetry better, rather than killing vast amounts of people to “make them better,” China would have been in his eternal debt.
The Climate extremists who would have us all reduced to the status of slaves pottering about in pyjamas eating turnips and pulling carts are not in power, but like a lot of bat crazy stuff these days, they have managed to influence state policies and international policy to an alarming degree.
So, of course, they are the go-to for first response to such plans as were trumpeted yesterday and predictably the response is that things need to happen quicker. Although Friends of the Earth boasts that the overall climate legislation contains all the “key elements” they have demanded, CEO Óisín Coughlan said that the plan needed to be delivered “at pace.”
Of course FOE, like all NGOs, is overwhelmingly dependent on direct state and recycled funding, where another NGO bungs a few € to their buddies, as last year did Concern and others to FOE. That undoubtedly means that they are less inclined to be openly critical, but in their case they have their cake and eat it. That means a pretty tiny group, in the scheme of things, not only drive state policy but get hundreds of thousands of your money to do so. Nice work if you can get it, as they say.
And what are they telling you to do? Well, as the headlines indicate, cars are a prime target with an aim of drastically reducing emissions from transport and agriculture. Given that carbon emissions increased last year – by over 5% compared to a target of a 4.8% annual reduction – and that they will increase again this year by around 6%, the stress on placing the burden on agriculture and private transportation is understandable. Understandable that is if you believe that Ireland ought to be imposing possibly damaging restrictions, certainly costly ones, in pursuit of an agenda that is not being followed by the largest world economy, China.
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