Sir, – At the recent Thurles Climate Action Forum, the Minister for Climate Action and Environment spoke about the necessity of lowering our carbon emissions and how hard we would all have to work to achieve the Government’s renewable energy targets (Statement of Strategy 2019-2021) and invited questions from the audience. Many anxious questions about the costs of achieving Government policies followed, mainly in the agricultural and housing sectors.
Finally a question was asked about whether there would be sufficient energy from “renewables” for the large-scale movement of light transport and heating to electricity, together with energy-greedy data centres: had the Government considered new developments in nuclear energy?
The question was ignored as we were told, with a casual sweep of the hand, that the new offshore wind farms in the Irish Sea would provide plenty of electricity.
At a public forum considering Government policies and likely achievement of significant cuts in emissions, it does not seem strange to expect an interest in and discussion of any low-carbon source of energy. We cannot expect serious change to result from a rigid adherence to current policies. – Yours, etc,
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ANNE BAILY,
Ballyneale,
Carrick-on-Suir,
Co Tipperary.