Former Green Party members call climate claims 'nonsense'

ENVIRONMENTALISTS:A NUMBER of environmentalists, including some former Green Party members, have called for a No vote in the Lisbon referendum.

Former Green Party politicians Patricia McKenna, Bronwen Maher and Chris O’Leary, accompanied by Peace and Neutrality Alliance international secretary Dr Edward Horgan, yesterday said a proper “green analysis” of the treaty has so far been missing from the debate. The group accused Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley of “spurious claims” that the treaty enhances environmental protection.

At a press conference in Dublin, Ms McKenna said the treaty offered no new environmental safeguards, and said it was “nonsense” to assert the treaty would help the EU to fight climate change. In fact she said the Euratom Treaty, supported by the Lisbon Treaty, required the promotion of nuclear power, which could undermine local renewable energies.

“Climate change will not become a horizontal principle applied to all EU policies including transport or agriculture. If it did then there would be some merit in supporting it on environmental grounds,” she said.

Ms Maher, a former member of Dublin City Council, said “the last thing this treaty could be called is green”. “There is far more emphasis in the Lisbon Treaty on the need for undistorted competition than on environmental or social policies,” she said.

Ms Maher said her group’s analysis of the treaty could find “nothing going on that is not going on already”.

Dr Horgan said he had seen first-hand the environmental damage of wars. He maintained Irish citizens would be drawn into wars as a result of the treaty, and that a vote in favour of Lisbon “means spending more money on tanks and other military expenditure, and less on health and education”.

Independent councillor Chris O’Leary said the Government was spreading fear by claiming Lisbon must be passed to secure jobs.