Richard Boyd Barrett: Urges EU to link climate action and fairness
Richard Boyd Barrett spoke about the need for the European Union to pair climate action with social protections and warned that policies perceived as punitive will be politically rejected. He also challenged the lack of European measures in response to Israel's actions in occupied Palestinian areas, calling for debate on sanctions.
Main argument on climate and politics
Richard Boyd Barrett argued that addressing the climate emergency must not feel like punishment for large sections of the population. He warned that if climate policies worsen people’s living standards, those people will not support them and may react against them, a dynamic that can fuel the rise of the far right.
Economic concerns cited
He highlighted pensions and falling wage share across Europe as issues that undermine public support for the European project and for climate action. He said improving quality of life is essential if citizens are to be won over to ambitious climate measures.
State aid and just transition
He asked whether current state aid rules and market rules should be changed, challenged, or abandoned to implement a just transition to address the climate emergency. He framed this as necessary to pull the political ground from under climate-denying and far-right forces.
Palestine and questions on sanctions
On Palestine, he described Israeli moves to annex parts of occupied territory and called the actions ethnic cleansing. He questioned why Europe has not imposed sanctions, noted resistance from some states to such measures, and asked what debates or responses exist among those opposed to sanctions.
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Is there any recognition, to use a seasonal metaphor, turkeys don't vote for Christmas, is there any recognition, because I don't think there appears to be on the part of the European Union, that if addressing the climate emergency, which we absolutely have to, is going to seem like punishment for huge sections of the population, that they're just not going to vote for it. They're not going to buy into it, and worse, they're going to react against it. And it's a noticeable fact, by the way, that the far right, who I mentioned, who are worryingly on the rise across Europe, one feature of the far right today is that they're climate change deniers. So, if we're going to take these people on, we have to pull the ground from under them by ensuring that life is going to be better for people by addressing the climate emergency, which, by the way, it should be. But Europe has to recognise, if it's going to win people over to that, and I don't see any sign of it, but maybe the Minister can cheer me up on this front, that it needs to address these things. And the most obvious things are the quality of life for people. So, I mentioned pensions. How is the attack on people's pension entitlements right across Europe going to endear people to the agenda of Europe? How is the fact that wage share all across Europe, as a proportion of national income, is falling and falling consistently, how does that endear people to the European project in terms of climate change? And, in particular, a very specific question, is there a recognition that state aid rules and market rules need to be changed, challenged, or indeed abandoned in many cases, in order to actually implement a just transition approach to the climate emergency? Just one other brief question I have, Minister, which I didn't mention earlier, but is on the specific issue of Palestine. And this has been discussed somewhat over the last few weeks, but I just want to ask again. Israel is just acting like a complete, you know, rogue state in terms of its treatment of the Palestinians. The latest now, after the move to effectively annex East Jerusalem, they're moving to annex parts of Hebron, they're now talking, Netanyahu's talking about annexing the Jordan Valley, right? And this just goes on and on. Ethnic cleansing is the only way to describe it, and yet there's no action coming from Europe to sanction Israel. Indeed, they continue to treat them as a preferred trade partner. Is there any serious discussion about taking any action? I mean, Taoiseach always says, oh, well, there's states in Europe who just won't tolerate sanctions. But I don't see the debate. So if Ireland is actually, you know, speaking up about this, where is the debate? What is the response of those who are resistant to imposing sanctions on Israel for its flagrant breach of human rights? What is the response?
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