Today in the Visitors Gallery there are several climate conscious students who travelled from Donegal this morning to attend the launch of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Climate Action's long-awaited report, which may or may not be launched this week, as originally planned. These young men and women organised a climate strike in Lifford, County Donegal, just over a week ago to coincide with the global climate strike carried out by students around the world, initiated by Greta Thunberg. Sadly, I was the only Deputy to show up at the climate strike in Donegal despite the scale of protest, which saw more than 1.4 million young people march in over 100 countries.

These students will hand a petition, which has almost 300 signatures from students and staff across Donegal, to the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, today. I thank the Minister for agreeing to meet them to accept the petition. The petition contains demands from students who say the Government's inaction is killing their future. They demand that the Government ensure that all fossil fuels are left in the ground and call for a ban on new fossil fuel infrastructure. They also want a climate emergency to be declared and for the State to communicate the severity of the ecological crisis to the public, including a reform of the educational system to address the need for ecological literacy. The rapid implementation of the entire Citizens' Assembly suite of recommendations on climate change is also demanded by the students, as well as policy changes to ensure a reduction in emissions from agriculture.

I am hopeful that the committee's report will go some way to addressing these demands but its main tenets can only be addressed where there is political will within the Government. I urge the Minister and the Taoiseach to seriously consider the list of demands in the petition and show they will take seriously the needs of this and future generations before it is too late. It is clear that this generation of young people will not be quiet on the issue. They refuse to be the generation that will remain "the voiceless future of humanity", as one student activist says. As Governments like the Taoiseach's continue to fail to respond adequately to climate change threats, climate activism is increasingly being harnessed by the young. Many of today's climate strikers will not even be 30 by the time the 1.5o deadline comes around in 2030. That is the significance of this. Will the Taoiseach commit to acting on student demands for urgent action on climate change?

Like a lot of people in this House I was inspired by the climate protests that students engaged in, not just here in Ireland but all over the world, and I was encouraged to see that there is political support behind us in Government and in this House to do the right things when it comes to climate change because we all know everybody wants climate action taken but when it comes to voting for and supporting some of the measures that might be unpopular or inconvenient some politicians run a mile-----

Free public transport.

Like banning fossil fuel exploration.

-----and will only support things that are popular or ineffectual and we will come back to that a little bit later-----

Free public transport.

Does that include the Taoiseach?

It is impossible to answer questions, a Cheann Comhairle.

They do not want to hear the answer.

I am not precious about these things but I listen-----

Is the Taoiseach sure?

I listen quietly to everyone's question, I write it down and I try to answer it but I am constantly interrupted.

The public is looking in and it does expect its parliamentarians to behave in a more adult and reasonable fashion.

I thank the Ceann Comhairle. Out of respect to the students and young people who came here to hear my answer, I am going to give them an answer.

As I said earlier, all of us in this House were very inspired and encouraged by the protests that students engaged in all around the world. They put it up to us, the adults, the politicians, to get more done, not just to talk about climate change or to put forward the measures that are popular but also to get behind measures that may be unpopular or may be difficult and unpalatable for some sectors in society. The Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment, Deputy Bruton, and Deputy Heydon attended those protests and spoke with many of the young people involved, as did Deputies around the country and I am glad they did that.

The all-party climate action committee is meeting at present. I hope we can get a consensus on the actions that need to be taken when it comes to climate change. We need a consensus on carbon tax, regulation and the type of investments we need to make. It will be much more easy to do if we have a political and all-party consensus behind those important measures so that it does not become a matter of point-scoring but a collective effort across politics. In addition, the Minister, Deputy Bruton, is working on our all-of-government approach and response to climate change, which will be very much informed by what parameters are set by the all-party committee.

Things happening this year that will make a big difference include, for example, that we are starting to decarbonise our bus fleet, and from the middle of this year all buses operated by Bus Éireann and Dublin Bus will be low-emission vehicles. The first of those is being tested in Cork at the moment, operating off compressed natural gas. We have committed to taking coal off the grid, so Moneypoint will no longer burn coal by the middle of this decade. We will need a transitional fuel such as natural gas to replace it. I think everyone accepts that is necessary. We are also investing much more in renewable energy and pushing that forward too. They are just three small examples.

Horses and carts.

I thank the Taoiseach for his response. I hope this Government will not let the young people down and that we will not look back on the Taoiseach's contribution today and ask where was the inspiration and encouragement. We need to get beyond that now. It is one thing for the Taoiseach to say he is inspired and encouraged by what the young people are saying but when will we actually do things? We saw here yesterday the Government's opposition to the fossil fuel drilling Bill going forward. We need to leave those fuels in the ground. The Taoiseach needs to listen to what the students are saying. That is how the Government can inspire people and make sure we can go forward together, hoping that we will see change. The problem is that we are not getting that consensus or a sense from the Government that it wants to go forward with everybody else on climate change. We owe it to those young people to stop the fancy words now and actually get on with the action and make sure the measures are delivered. I hope that in coming years, the Government will deliver rather than give us the fine talk.

The Deputy referred to legislation. The Government has already accepted during the term of this Dáil three Private Members' Bills to improve our environment: Deputy McLoughlin's Bill to ban fracking, which has now been banned in Ireland; Deputy Pringle's legislation to prevent the State investing in fossil fuels, that has been passed and we worked with the Deputy on that; and legislation proposed by the Green Party, which we have taken on board, to ban microplastics. Those are three practical examples of Bills that the Government has adopted and accepted to make our environment better.

We have a difficulty with the legislation being put forward on fossil fuels - the keep them in the ground Bill - because we are unconvinced on four points: the evidence is that this Bill will not reduce emissions at all, in fact one person taking the bus once rather than driving would reduce emissions more than that Bill, so it is largely ineffectual.

That is nonsense.

We do know that we will continue to need to use natural gas as a transitional fuel. Renewable energy at the moment cannot provide 100% of our energy needs. We will continue to need natural gas for the foreseeable future, certainly the next few decades.

We have gas for the next few decades.

If we have to use natural gas surely it is better to use our own natural gas than to import dirty natural gas from North America-----

“Dirty” natural gas.

-----or natural gas or oil from the Middle East or Venezuela because that means helping to fund regimes that have a very bad human rights record-----

Such as Russia and China which the Government is already partnered with.

-----and Russia and China and it also means we would have to import fuel, which is a loss to the Exchequer. That is our principled objection on that. We supported three Bills that make our environment a better place for good reasons. We have a difficulty with this particular Bill because it will not reduce emissions at all. It will have zero impact on emissions.

That is nonsense.

Second, it may be worse in the longer term-----

Stop telling people lies. That is nonsense.

-----because we would have to import gas from other parts of the world. Third, it is bad in terms of energy security because we would have to rely on Russia, China-----

The Government is already partnered with them.

-----the Middle East and Venezuela. Finally, it is a bad idea economically. It is bad for Cork, Killybegs, Foynes and all of the places where there are jobs to come from exploration, particularly when it comes to Bord Gáis-----

There are no jobs to be got from it.

-----but because I am speaking facts I am being shouted down again so I will sit down.