I thank Deputy O'Gorman for bringing forward this important motion. He is absolutely right to highlight the need for the Government to recommit in a serious way because it seems to have abandoned any serious effort to address the climate and biodiversity crisis that threatens our planet, threatens the ability of the planet to sustain human life in the long run and will certainly impose a huge cost on ordinary people unless it is addressed and addressed as a matter of urgency. It seems that this is one of the many areas in which this Government has bent the knee to Trump and his climate denialism, his warmongering and his obnoxious agenda in general. Pulling back from any serious efforts, giving up and abandoning to a significant extent attempts to deal with the climate and biodiversity crisis is another one of those pretty pathetic submissions to the Trump agenda. You can look at what Trump's warmongering has now done. It is not only raining down death and destruction - by the way, all of that is an environmental disaster and if that level of militarism continues, the destruction of the climate is an absolute guarantee - but it is also imposing a huge economic and financial cost on ordinary people here. We saw the consequences of that. We need to address this. That means recommitting to the climate targets and addressing biodiversity and things like the marine protected areas, which the Government has dragged its heels on. There is a pathetically low level of protection of our marine area and the biodiversity in it. What is absolutely critical - this is where I have a genuine disagreement with Deputy O'Gorman and others in the House, including on the left - is that it has to be a just transition. For the 320,000 people who are in electricity arrears, the 180,000 people who are in gas arrears and the one in four people who are suffering energy poverty, according to the ESRI, any further imposition on them of a financial cost over issues like energy flies in the face of any suggestion of a just transition. That is why we oppose the carbon tax. You are discrediting the climate agenda by saying that ordinary people should pay carbon taxes when they are not profiting from the destruction of the environment. They have no choice about the energy they use. We should be targeting the people who profit from the destruction of the environment. That means the fossil fuel companies, the data centres and the people who are actually holding up the addressing of the climate and biodiversity crisis or, worse, profiting from it. We need to actively encourage people to buy into the green agenda by supporting things like free public transport, giving things like energy credits and rolling out free retrofits, which are paid for through progressive taxation. That is the sort of thing that can bring ordinary people on side with the urgent need to address the climate and biodiversity crisis.

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