Would the Tánaiste agree that the most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, has not got the attention it deserves due to the desperate situation in Ukraine and concerns about the cost of energy and security of supply? This report makes for alarming reading. It is another serious wake-up call. The world is nowhere near on track to limit global warming to 1.5°C by 2050. There is not a hope that will be met. In fact, the evidence points to a 3°C rise by the end of this century. We are heading towards catastrophic levels of warming with mass extinctions and the likely end of civilisation as we know it. Introducing the report, the UN Secretary General António Guterres said that countries and businesses were lying. "Lying" is a strong word. It is an extraordinary statement but unfortunately it is true. That includes Ireland and Europe.

It is now time to recognise that extreme climate change cannot be averted, never mind limited, as long as the current socioeconomic system of capitalism remains in place. It is a system where eight men have as much wealth as 50% of the poorest world population; where in the course of a deadly pandemic the already super-rich 1% got richer while the 99% got poorer; and where production takes place for the profit of the few as opposed to the needs of the many. This represents a world gone badly wrong.

The IPCC report calls for transformational change. We need not just a transition to a more sustainable world; we need a just transformation to a sustainable, healthy and just world. Instead of the mayhem of the market, we need to use the resources of the planet, which are limited, to meet the needs of all the people in a sustainable and healthy environment. People like me on the left have been arguing for such a transformation for far too long. Time is running out and the window to a better future is closing. We need to start a discussion about the transformation we need and how to go about achieving it. Capitalism offers only empty promises and at best half measures, too little, too late. It is time to stop the pretence. We need to get real. Does the Tánaiste agree it is time for real transformational change?

I thank the Deputy. I certainly agree with her initial statement that the IPCC report that came out the other day did not get the attention it deserved. It was very alarming, quite frankly, to read the summary, which I did. The Deputy is correct in her analysis that the war in Ukraine, the pandemic that still rages around the world, and the shocking rise in the cost of living meant it did not get the kind of attention it deserved. Sometimes when we are managing crises such as the war in Ukraine, the rising cost of living and the pandemic, we can lose sight of the mega-crisis which is climate change and the impact it is going to have and is already having on people.

I think the "blame capitalism" analysis is too simplistic. If we look at the state-planned economies like the Chinese economy, they are producing quite a lot of emissions which are rising very rapidly. Economies that were developed under socialist systems such as the former Soviet economies, Russia, for example, and North Korea, they are very much based on heavy industry and are really all about pumping coal, steel and all the rest of it. I think that is too simplistic. One good thing about capitalism is that it does tend to innovate and develop the kind of technologies that will allow us to deal with climate change. Technologies such as green hydrogen, offshore wind and carbon capture storage are all being developed and funded by capitalists, not by people who have different ideologies. I think that capitalist versus socialist thing is far too simplistic and far too ideological.

I agree that we need systems change. I remember saying a couple of years ago that if we were to achieve our climate targets and reduce emissions by what we had hoped we would reduce them by, we would need to shut down the economy and send everyone home. We pretty much did that during the pandemic and our emissions only went down by 6% or 7%. What that says to me is that we need systems change. We need to change the way we produce our energy, stop fossil fuels, and move to renewables and hydrogen. That is what we are doing but it will take time. We need to change our transport and food systems. We need to change the way we heat our homes. Systems change cannot be done overnight. It will take a generation to do it. We cannot just shut down the way things are. People still need to be able to live their everyday and normal lives. It will take a generation to go from fossil fuels to renewables, in my view. In the meantime, we have to live our lives.

People cannot live their lives at the moment. People in the Third World cannot live their lives at the moment. People in this country are finding it very difficult to live their lives at the moment with the cost of living and the systems in place for climate change.

To my mind, the vote last night did not reflect the debate that happened on carbon budgets. I am fundamentally putting to the Tánaiste that we need that transformational change. It is not me saying it but the UN Secretary General. That means tackling the massive profits of these energy companies, and tackling the wealth of that 1% of the richest people. It means tackling the dividends giving out to shareholders with governments intervening to take that money from their pockets and putting it into carbon change. We know people on low to middle incomes will not be able to afford the €25,000 for retrofitting. Therefore, those people are paying for the wealthy to get retrofitting and not them. We know that retrofitting is one of the key factors that could change people's lives as regards carbon emissions.

I understand where the Deputy is coming from but I am just not sure what she is suggesting we do in practical terms. We have a really ambitious retrofit programme which is very much under way. The constraint there is not money. We will find it difficult to spend the money we have allocated towards retrofitting that comes from carbon taxes paid by businesses as well as households.

Those businesses that produce the most carbon pay the most. However, the difficulty we will run into with retrofitting is having the skills and staff to make it happen; it is not a financial issue. If we took all the dividends in the world, they would not create an extra plumber or provide us with the additional capacity we need.

The Government has had years-----

I understand the Deputy's passion on climate action and I believe you are sincere on it. Not everyone in this House is but the Deputy is. I would love to know what she would do tomorrow to allow us to reduce our emissions suddenly and dramatically. You cannot replace everyone's car and all the heating systems in the country overnight, and you cannot just turn off all power stations. It will take a generation to make these changes happen and it will have to involve a combination of mitigation and-----

We cannot have a conversation about it across the House.