"Green" policies are destroying this country

In general media are lazy, they won't turn down free copy. Whinge energy Ireland give then a press release with copy practically written for them, rearrange the words and add their spin, otherwise it looks bad if all print the same content verbatim with their name stuck to it (it's happened before). If you are an environmental correspondent in a news organization, eNGOs, industry groups and government department are going to keep sending you "free" copy, they may even invite you to expenses paid conferences or special expenses paid training seminars. All you have to do is support their narrative, life is easy. Question the narrative, easy copy dries up, you incur shoe leather costs sniffing out your next story or have to cosy up to another lobby group that will supply you "free" copy.

As an example, RTE's George Lee, environmental correspondent for RTE on ~€180K. His qualifications are in economics, he has the skillset to examine the bullsh!t that industry lobby groups such as WEI send his way, does he do that? no way.

Let's introduce you to the Oxford Climate Journalism Network, this is run by Reuters, initial funding came from an eNGO called European Climate Foundation, It's a well funded bundling organisation which was founded by US-based Climate Works, which is funded by several billionaire trust funds, notably Hewlett foundation.

Here are people who work or have worked for Irish media organisations who have been on that climate "jolly".

• Nora-Íde McAuliffe is the audience editor at The Irish Times.
• David Labanyi is Head of Audience at The Irish Times.
• Cáit Caden is a business reporter at Irish Examiner.
• Niall Sargent is an Investigative Reporter at Noteworthy / Journal Media,
• Philip Bromwell is digital native content editor at RTÉ News
• Margaret Donnelly is the Farming Editor at the Irish Independent
• Kevin Doyle is Group Head of News with the Irish Independent
• Glenn Mason, RTÉ News, Ireland
• Rory Tevlin, Irish Independent, Ireland
  
  

In addition RTE have signed on to the Climate Content Pledge, as have Coimisiún na Meán. RTE are a partner of Covering Climate Now. and they have received additional taxpayer funding to cover "climate" and "sustainability" topics.

In answer to your question, why it is not mentioned: It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

There have been limited coverage in Irish media about problems with the electricity infrastructure, notably the business post, you can also read between the lines in some Engineers Ireland reports and the commissioner for regulation of Utilities (CRU) about the shortcomings in the system. Mostly media is driven by press release, that's why data centers get attention but not the shortcomings of unreliable generation or our dependency on inter-connectors to make up the shortfall.

All island - Peak demand reached 7502 MW on 8 January 2025, at the time there was no solar generation and wind generation was insignificant across multiple countries at once due to the weather system parked over us and the neighbours.
In order to mange that, they implement demand management, the large consumers re ordered off the grid onto their own generation facilities. Inter-connector prices during this time are eye-watering.

There is also a scenario where there is too much wind and solar generation, this is most likely to occur in the Spring here in Ireland. Eirgrid limit non-synchronous generation to 60%, otherwise the grid can become unstable as happened in Spain earlier this year. Their design target for wind and solar is 70%, the previous minister Eamon Ryan decreed 80% without telling anyone in Eirgrid beforehand.

A minister for climate is a sad King Canute joke on us, I get why it's there, there is money floating around, politicians want a slice of the pie. Irelands climate has not changed in millennia, by the Köppen climate classification (Cfb) it's temperate, with no dry season and warm Summer. When people are talking about climate change they are referring to the change in weather statistics over an arbitrary 30 year time period, this convention was adopted by meteorologists in the early 20th century. Of course weather instrument readings change from minute to minute, day to day within the bounds of Cfb climate classification. They've only been gathering statistics since the late 19th century, meteorology only took off (SIC) with the build out of airports in the 20th century. Nothing exciting in that data, in order to generate headlines they take any anomalies they measure i.e. random noise and tell you the weather is becoming more extreme which contradicts your day to day experience and undermines their credibility.

In the ~40 years since the United Nations began promoting catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) narrative, the climate classification has not changed in Ireland. Even in those remote areas of the planet they like to fixate on, the ice caps are still there, the Polar bears are doing fine, the coral off Australia is fine, the islands that are supposed to be underwater are still there, in fact some such as the Maldives have built more airports. None of the absurd claims the alarmists have made over the decades have come true, these peoples skill at prediction makes Mystic Meg (RIP) look like a scientific genius on a par with Einstein. 40 years on alarmists are reduced to projecting their invalid apocryphal beliefs into the future across the media landscape with the aid of computer models that have no demonstrated skill at prediction.

What has changed in 40 years? Population has grown, economic output and debt has grown, more people are in employment. In general, over that time more people have escaped poverty globally in 40 years than at anytime in world history.

In 1987, global population was ~5 billion people, In 2025 it's estimated around 8.2 billion people. There are more of us alive today. In that time Irelands population has gone from ~3.5 million to ~5.4 million. Migration patterns have changed, Native Irish people still migrate in search of better opportunity (lack of affordable housing an cost of living being a significant driver), they are replaced by people from across the world are coming here also seeking economic opportunity. Given that change in population alone, a cap on the airport makes no sense unless there is an ulterior motive . . . cui bono?

More people must consume more energy, when you look at the consumption of hydrocarbons (coal, oil, natural gas) in those 40 years, with the exception of some temporary economic downturns, more is produced and consumed than every before. What has changed in that time is the migration of many industries from the USA and Europe, primarily to China and South East Asia. While European countries in particular like to point to reduction in hydrocarbon use in their local countries, de-industralisation if a primary factor in this, the hydro-carbons are being burned elsewhere, goods are then imported.

It's not a sunshine and roses, Debt has multiplied (we need economic growth to make the interest payments), driven by both public and private borrowing. That's a ticking timebomb, every few decades there are sovereign defaults. There is a massive investment bubble in AI at present, that is going to pop eventually. The green new deal bubble has popped and there are sizeable losses to be realized in some of our pension funds. There are major ongoing wars that have not yet reached their conclusion. Behind that there is a realignment of countries interests with China despite it's own internal problems likely to be the beneficiary and their interest in the green new deal is one of supplying the parts and using it to undermine Western governments.

CAGW narrative has a lot of money riding on it such as Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, Global Carbon Market, EU Just Transition Fund, Billions in research grants for universities and other direct subsidies in wind, solar and batteries. There is much spent in lobbying to keep that afloat. That brings me back to the ulterior motive question, imposing emissions targets by sector is economic central planning, it is causing the migration of energy intensive industries from the EU to other parts of the globe. No economic growth can be powered by intermittent low density generators that use components that can only be imported from China.

The greens and their climate lobby sponsors have been unable to produce evidence of loss and damage. In the United States, several of the Democrat run states have been pushing lawsuits against their oil and gas majors, so far unsuccessfully, the intent is gain a new source of tax revenue. In Europe, the groups have focused on "human rights" claims and have succeeded in getting "non-binding" judgements in the IHCR, these are predicated on laws that various EU (and Britain) governments have passed setting out emissions targets goals.

The major political question in Ireland today is not the Dublin airport cap, it is solving the infrastructure bottlenecks that have built up over the last decade, especially on the east coast of the country, they can either solve the bottlenecks or pursue emissions targets, can't do both,

Environmentalists are either Malthusian fetishists or they are acting as a front for other vested interests who benefit directly from the status quo. The politics that saw the rise of environmentalism has fallen out of favour among the public in recent years, politicians and vested interests will not willingly let go of the revenue that environmental taxes and subsidies bring in.

There are currently no political parties in Ireland willing to make the link between current policies built around emissions targets and the costs associated with that. We are already among the highest prices for electricity globally, it gets exponentially more expensive to continue on the current path, a change of direction is about time. The cap at Dublin airport if enforced may become the straw that breaks the camels back becoming the symbol of the infrastructure bottlenecks across electricity, water, transport and housing making it politically untenable.

Tourists are operating within their budget, and since prices have gone up in Ireland, they are not staying as long. Which probably means the weekend market (Ryanair) is more appealing.

There are flight connections where Ryanair bring them in but their are transferring to flights to US, Middle East or elsewhere.

There are internal flights.

You are right, I was using out of date information from a few years ago. The 80% number was a comment by Mark Foley: Eirgrid chief says 80% renewables target ‘a nice surprise’

Reaching the government’s new target of 80 per cent renewables on the electricity grid will require more than the additional €1 billion in funding outlined last week, the chief executive of Eirgrid has said.

Mark Foley was speaking to the Business Post at Cop26 after he described the Climate Action Plan’s new 2030 renewables target as “a nice surprise” during an event at the conference.

One thing missed in all of this is peaker plants having horrendously bad efficiency. How much of that 60% gas was CCG?