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THE FOSSIL FUEL Divestment Bill has been passed by the Dáil today, resulting in those in the public gallery erupting in applause.
The Bill is the cumulation of two-years work for Donegal TD Thomas Pringle and means the government will have to divest public money from fossil fuel companies.
It means the government will have to drop coal, oil and gas investments from the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
The initiative had cross-party support today, and though the government originally seemed opposed to the Bill, it worked with Pringle on an amendment and agreed to support it last week at Cabinet.
Trocáire, who actively campaigned for divestment, reacted by tweeting:
“The passing of the Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill this afternoon has made history. Ireland is the first country in the world to commit to withdrawing public money invested in fossil fuels.”
Many TDs in the Dáil said the passing of this Bill today means Ireland is leading the way in breaking away from an industry that has been blamed for contributing most to climate change.
Labour’s Joan Burton said the Irish government has a responsibility to invest in industries that do not cause harm, highlighting that Ireland has already divested its interests in the tobacco industry.
“It’s a great day,” said Fianna Fáil’s Eugene Murphy who added that Ireland had led the way with the smoking ban, with the plastic bag levy and now with fossil fuel divestment.
He said it was a huge step forward and one that should be acted on quickly.
Minister Michael D’Arcy said the amendment accepted will give strict but achievable targets for the government. It will call on the NTMA and ISIF to divest its investments as soon as is applicable.
Just last month, an EU report ranked Ireland second worst country in Europe for climate action. While welcoming today’s vote, a number of TDs criticised the government for not doing enough to meet the country’s carbon emission targets and tackling climate change.
The Fossil Fuel Divestment Bill will now make its way to the Seanad.
The sooner we go nuclear power the better !
@martobaby: Nuclear is a mediocre option. We would still be reliant on other countries for the source of our fuel and would be reliant on other countries in which to dispose of our waste. We have ample wind, hydro, solar and tidal power in Ireland, not just to be self-sufficient, but to export power to the the UK and the rest of Europe.
@martobaby: The cost of nuclear in the U.K. is around £0.098/kWh, while the latest onshore wind is <£0.05/kWh. That’s before you factor in the decommissioning cost of nuclear.
I like cheap electricity, what about you? Therefore I like onshore wind…
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: Apart from the fact that there are commercial uranium deposits in Donegal.
@George Salter: We can’t manage water in a country that gets more rain than most. Imagine what crack would happen if we had a nuclear utility. We are to small of a country to risk an accident.
@Stephen Curry: We can manage water perfectly well. Problem has always been that local authorities were starved of upgrade money for at least the last 25 years. Now it’s coming back to bite us in the arse
@Stephen Curry:
That’s a ridiculous argument Stephen, any nuclear power plant in Ireland would be run by a major multinational to European standards. We would hardly set up a semi state to do it.
The reality is due to the stringent safety standards around nuclear plants nowadays they are now one of the most expensive forms of power.
Onshore wind in the short term and if they can be harnessed economically, wave or tidal in the future are the best options for Ireland but the nimbys will stop that.
@George Salter: what’s to stop this happening in this case? Personally i don’t or wouldn’t trust any Irish agency overseeing this. A single accident could effect the whole country. Will never happen either way imagine the planning objections, if a data centre can’t get built this would have zero chance
@George Salter: First: The people of the North West have point blank refused fracking. What makes you think they will support uranium extraction? Second: Any nuclear plant would have to be located close to its greatest market, i.e. Dublin. This means shipping nuclear material right through the Midlands and the centre of towns such as Sligo. Can you really see towns such as Sligo agreeing to that either? Third: We would then be reliant on a foreign company to extract the materials and provide it to a foreign-owned nuclear power plant (because, let’s face it, the Irish government will never build such a power plant) with the waste which we would then have to pay some foreign government to dispose of. We would still not be energy self-sufficient, so my point still stands.
@P.J. Nolan: If accidents can happen in Japan, America, France etc it most definitely can happen here. Fully agree with the rest of your comment
@martobaby: completely agree!
@martobaby: Yes and it should be in Dublin. New important buildings with high employment.Got to be Dublin. On a serious note there is no chance getting that built anywhere
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: you haven’t a clue, wind can’t replace a nuclear or coal plant!!!!
@Brian Ó Dálaigh: First. This is Ireland. People refuse point blank until they get enough cash. Second. We have this technology called cables. They transmit power. Third. Uranium ore is not very radioactive. It’s after its used that the problems happen.
Your other points, quite frankly, show a remarkable lack of ambition and lack of belief in our abilities.
@martobaby: are you having a laugh ? Would you seriously trust anyone in this country with nuclear power? The new Incinerator in Poolbeg had a f^*king leak on its first day !!! FFS
@Nucky: Quite a few Irish engineers working in UK nuclear power stations actually
@Owen M: That’s the country where they pay towns to bury barrels of used nuclear fuel under their fields? I still won’t buy any of their meat, thanks. The UK used to value griwing theur own food, now they import most of their food, but they still can’t find a market for their radioactive waste. So they store it underground.
@George Salter: That’s a strange definition of managing.
Sorry about the typos, I meant ‘growing their own food’.
@Owen M: You’re having a laugh, right? You think I’m proposing one wind turbine to replace an entire nuclear or coal power plant? I did mention hydro, tidal, solar and wind. There’s also biomass to add in to the mix. But with a closed mind like yours, is it any wonder the world is screwed up.
@George Salter: I’m aware cables transmit power. I’m also aware of loss of energy over long-distance transmission. That is why an east coast reactor would be required, and all proposals have placed such a reactor on the east coast. Maybe you know better than the experts, though. So, the material would have to pass through Irish towns. Irrespective of the radioactivity, or lack thereof, the public would not go for it. As for paying off us in the North West. I’m sorry, but no amount of money will be enough to destroy our environment for Dublin’s luxuries. As for a lack of belief in our abilities, we couldn’t build a proper M50. We messed up the LUAS. We messed up our water. We can’t run a health service or public transport. So, no, I don’t trust our abilities.
@martobaby: other countries are decommissioning in favour of renewables. Germany is on track to close all nuclear plants by 2022 and to have a minimum of 80% of all power come from renewables by 2050. “At one point on the sunny and breezy Sunday, sustainable energy from wind, solar, biomass and hydro power provided a record 85 per cent of the country’s total energy.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/germany-renewable-energy-record-coal-nuclear-power-energiewende-low-carbon-goals-a7719006.html
@EillieEs: Good to hear. So the nuclear companies will be eager to sell the idea to other countries, if they can only bribe enough people. I hope that Ireland remains free of it.
@Fiona Fitzgerald: it’s also going to cost Germany a fortune to pay off the companies who will lose revenue as a result of the closures. Yes indeed here’s hoping.
@lousybush: if only the wind would blow all the time. Now what?
@martobaby: WHY NUCLEAR?? When we have wind power and the sea power to draw from.. I don’t agree personally with Nuclear Power.. Being an Island gives us a HUGE advantage.
What about Bord Na Mona?
@Kevin Feeney: a highly relevant question.
@Kevin Feeney:
The sooner they’re gone the better
We truly have absolutely no vision or leadership in Ireland. What a short-sighted bill!
@J. Reid: It is the furthest thing fro short sighted. We rely on others to supply us and our economy is badly effected by it. Generate our own power and we take back the hold others have on us.
We have the wind and wave power and surprisingly even the solar power to do this. It is the long game and a great job done by Thomas Pringle TD
@J. Reid: divesting from fossil fuels: short sighted… I mean, do you hear yourself?
@J. Reid: what a short sighted comment. If you had any knowledge of technology or economics you would know that renewables are due to take over completely from fossil fuels in the next five years, probably leading to a global recession. Renewables are already cheaper than fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are, unironically, going the way of the dinosaur.
@Alan Carmody:
I’m as fond of renewables as anyone, I have invested in them but your comment is incredibly optimistic.
@Alan Carmody: until the wind stops blowing
@J. Reid: I sort of agree with you in this in part, in that some of the leaders of the renewables, and those that shall heavily benefit are going to be the current big players in fossil fuels who are investing into renewables in a big way, I mean, they have to diversify as to them its just another good investment.
So in terms of shareholdings in those companies, the bill maybe shortsighted to have ditched them.
HOWEVER, terms of other fossil fuels companies that are not engaged in renewables by now and any stand alone fossil fuel projects, it’s probably not short sighted.
@Conor Paddington: bet you wont divest from fossil fuels yourself!
@Owen M: all marmalade for me
Selling it all off to private companies that’ll be then… SMH.
@Toby Mole: Selling what off?
@Dave Byrne: should prob google our oil, gas and uranium deposits.. those that the government hasn’t already sold off that is
@Dave Byrne: the investments I think he means.
If you divest, someone else invests, if you sell the shares, someone else shall buy the shares, in fact, they can only sell, if they find a buyer, in the case of shares the stock market shall pair up the buyers and sellers.
So let’s invest this money in restoring and saving our bogs and realising the value of them. Boglands store twice as much carbon as forests and are vital if we are to combat climate change but also to help with the flooding problems we are having in recent years.
Peat fired electricity generating plants will keep getting extension after extension.
Will this be the excuse to raise the fuel taxes?
Now if we could only move to at least 3rd worst position in Europe for action on climate change!
@Niall: more likely, we will slip to worst.
Pity they wouldn’t stop burning peat and ruining our bogs to generate electricity.
This shows such committment. Really hope it continues.
Typical Donegal TD, who thinks money grows on trees. Let’s sell off our 318 million investment, while the price is rising. I notice no one is putting forward the alternative stock we should buy
@Jerry Hurley: Why don’t you then !
@GorillaGrower: With Trump in the White House and His pro oil agenda, I would recommend investing in oil, Oh Wait!
God knows the fossil fuel coming from the crooks running this country , could power the British aisles !
How much public money is actually being divested. Whatever about the funds, how will this impact consumption of fossil fuels by the end user, how does this reduce our carbon footprint or lethal emissions from diesel or petrol etc ?
I bet the people backing this wont divest from fossil fuels themselves !!!
Good luck sticking a nuclear plant anywhere in this country.
Thorium is the only way… We should have the first modern LFTR and should put it righg in the middle of Dublin. At the moment Dublin’ s electricity is less stable than its water supply and it will only get worse as we go to DS3.
This proposed legislation is absolutely ludicrous and reckless in the extreme. Apart from the heavily subsidised, environmentally destructive and inadequacy of renewables such as wind, fossil fuels have dragged humanity and this country up out of the mud and toil of a Hobbesian existence.
The fact that we are prepared to ignore our own pre-eminent scientists on climatology, namely Professor Ray Bates in favour of the new age religion of climatism speaks to the lack of knowledge by ideologues and our political leaders.
Even if we were to believe the worst prognostications of AGW theory, that Ireland should be making reparations for our climate original sin transgressions, this faux virtue signal is misplaced due to the late industrialisation of the country vis-a-vis the ROW.
@Credalytics:
For evidence of real environmental damage due to the insanity or divesting fossil fuels for renewables see here:
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth
@Credalytics: subsidies to the fossil fuel industry are much higher than to renewables and now account for approx 6% of global GDP at over $5 trillion annually. All energy sources impact on the environment but fossil fuels do far more damage than renewable energies. “Our own pre-eminent scientists on climatology” Prof Bates is a meteorologist not a climatologist.
http://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2015/09/28/04/53/sonew070215a
@EillieEs:
I would hazzard a guess that the proportion in climate scientists incressed over the years in line with the grant funding made avaiable to unscupplous academics that waded into science depatments from sociology studies.
The fact that you are unaware of Prof. Bates CV demonstrates ann ideological bias.
Prof. Bates’ current research interests are in the theory and modelling of the global climate. He is particularly interested in the mechanisms that keep the global climate stable at its current equilibrium and that determine its sensitivity to external forcing such as that due to CO2 increase. He is involved in the area of estimating climate sensitivity using global energy balance models and responses to surface temperature variations derived from satellite measurements.
Is Bord na Mona involved in the fossil fuel business, & does the State still own it?
The oil and gas industry will not exist in a few years
We eill have all moved on thank god
@Marcus o Dhonnghaile:
A few years try 60
Use our natural resources.. Wind, Water ( and I don’t mean our drinking water) No nuclear power station is needed..
have your say