Ireland's plan to put solar panels on all schools won praise at the launch of the first ‘net-zero government initiative’ at COP27.
Climate Minister Eamon Ryan met with US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry ahead of the packed-out event at the global climate summit.
Our country is one of 19 founding members of the US-led group aimed at ensuring national government services ‘lead by example’ on reducing emissions.
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Members, including Australia, Germany, the UK and Netherlands, have vowed to reach net-zero in all government operations by 2050 and develop a plan by next year on how to get there.
Minister Ryan said: “We have a target of 33% reduction in emissions in the public sector, which we delivered in 2020 - now we go 50% by 2030.”
Outlining three examples of changes Ireland is making, he added: “Our postal service is still a public company.
“The CEO there a few years ago, people came to him and said we should go to electric vehicles and he said ‘yes’.
“They said ‘we’ll buy four of five’ - he says ‘no, we change the fleet - we buy 800 now’.
“Everyone thought that was crazy but it has actually worked. He took a leap, he showed leadership.
“The second example from Ireland that might be applicable anywhere - this is not easy - but we have a tax on carbon and each year by law it goes up €7 a tonne to €100 a tonne by 2030.
“The revenue is... not touched except for climate - 55% goes to retrofitting and 60% of that goes to social housing.
“One last example - we haven’t delivered it yet - in response to the energy crisis.
“We decided we’re going to put solar panels on every school building as a way of schools saving money, reducing emissions but also as an education for each school to be able to monitor and see how this works.
“Schools are the centre of a community so if we can get it working there, we spread it to the local shops, local housing and so on.”
Brenda Mallory, who leads on a range of environmental issues at the White House, said: “By joining this initiative, countries are for the first time on the global stage.. explicitly articulating the leadership role of government in catalysing economy-wide climate actions.
“I love the examples,” she told Eamon Ryan.
“On your school point, it is the centre of every community for just helping regular everyday people understand the technology, where it’s going and what it’s doing.”
Other founding members said they are working on reducing energy use, renewables, power purchasing policy and retrofitting government buildings.
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