The Government is to convene an “energy independence summit” to consider how Ireland can become energy independent by harnessing its untapped renewable energy resources while pursuing decarbonisation of the economy, Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told the National Economic Dialogue.
It will have a similar approach to the summit on the housing crisis, and its main focus will be on offshore and onshore wind energy as well as solar, battery technologies, hydrogen, interconnection, finance and planning. “This is our moon shot for the 21st century and we must grasp the opportunity,” Mr Varadkar said.
The summit is to be hosted in the coming weeks by him and Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan, who has responsibility for energy.
Acknowledging the climate crisis was the single greatest threat to humanity with the world on the cusp of an ecological disaster, he said: “We must be the generation that turns the tide”.
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This involved deploying the technologies that can help avoid that fate; “we must be ahead of that”, he said.
In the short-term, the Taoiseach said energy costs would remain high next winter in a scenario where “energy poverty is very real”. While budget 2024 would help on that front, energy price stability would come from moving to renewables and scaling up retrofitting of homes.
Mr Ryan said the summit would take place in the context of Ireland having a surplus of renewable electricity by 2030, which underlined the importance of additional interconnectors with UK and Europe, and having a green hydrogen policy to facilitate conversion of renewable power into another clean fuel.
From a housing, climate and health perspective, he agreed with the Taoiseach that being “the best country in the world to raise a child” was a good metric. “There’s nothing more that our children need than a safe planet to live on,” he added.
In that context, recent warming patterns around the world were very worrying because of the scale of variation from the norm, he said. “Our children need us to address climate, to restore nature, and they deserve the right to grow up in a natural world that is not being torn apart as well as having a stable economy and jobs and a future.”
On a breakout session on climate and environment, he said there was agreement “that we’re going to do more engagement, that actually the social partnership model, where we are in a room together listening, sharing best practice, ideas, is the best way of running this country”.
This was particularly helpful in considering the future of farming and land use, “where we start on what we agree on ... what are the principles, principles of support, the Irish family farm principle, that we want a whole generation of young people to go into farming and forestry. The principle that we cannot have our waters polluted.”
The biggest constraint, Mr Ryan said, was getting the human resources required - “a whole new generation of farmers, foresters, public servants”.
“We’ve a difficult budget task here because we need a bigger state, but we need to make sure we don’t push inflation. So that’s the balance in the next three months in the run-up to the budget,” he said.
Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe said decarbonisation – one of four main themes at the dialogue – “is an increasingly important element, if not even a vital element” in how the Government was managing its capital spending.
Capital spend had tripled since the first dialogue eight years ago and would increasingly be focused on enhancing public transport, while the carbon impact of the National Development Plan – and not just the amount spent – was really important, he added.
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Minister for Finance Michael McGrath said further disruption to energy supplies could have serious implications for Ireland, while he confirmed he would be issuing a paper on “beyond GDP” in the budget, which would look at wellbeing and sustainability.
