Greens to unveil plans for clean economy tomorrow

 

The Green Party today claimed that the absence of any debate on climate change and long term planning from last night’s RTÉ Leaders’ Debate was extremely disappointing.

 

Speaking today, Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan said: “We fought to be included in the seven Leaders’ Debate because we felt we could bring an important perspective to the fore. This perspective, of long term thinking and planning, was notably absent from last night’s debate, as we feared it would be.

 

“Not one word was uttered about the long term effects of climate change, how we mitigate it, or how we build a strong, resilient economy for the long term. The World Bank have warned that climate change is the number one risk to long term growth and economic security, yet in last night’s return to well-rehearsed ‘stability versus chaos’ arguments it was not mentioned once.

 

“Auction politics and short term political thinking have hugely damaged our country in the past.  We wanted to broaden the debate and bring in some long term thinking about the global trends that are going to affect our country. The rest of the world is starting to go Green, as Governments commit to tackling climate change. It makes real economic sense for Ireland to be a leader rather than a follower in making that transition.

 

“We need an election debate with questions what sort of economy we want to create and not just how we spend the proceeds of wealth creation. There are nine days left in this campaign to try and raise such perspectives and that is what we will be trying to do right up to polling day.”