Ireland must lead not follow
Consultation on the offshore renewable energy (ORE) Future Framework Policy
The Irish State is devising a long term policy for offshore renewable energy. It’s draft document, if adopted would result in the greatest failure of Irish policy since the foundation of the state. We are on the cusp of an existential climate catastrophe. We have the best marine resources in the NW Atlantic. We are about to surrender the opportunities that will stem from game changing sustainable technologies to competing nations. It this happens future Irish generations will hold us to account.
See the full discussion here.
We feel that the Policy as outlined in the Consultation document is significantly under-ambitious in a way that will have negative outcomes for the State and its people from sustainability, economic, and social perspectives.
Ireland has a responsibility to its European colleague nations to responsibly maximise the use of its extensive marine resources to assist in the meeting the decarbonisation targets of the EU.
Ireland must not let competitor nations capture the leadership of technology development or the international capital necessary to support projects of the scale needed to achieve a full leveraging of the North West Atlantic region offshore wind opportunity.
A state policy that does not seize the employment, education, and innovation opportunities to re-invigorate the communities of the Irish West coast would be seen as a missed opportunity of a vast scale.
The Policy must not confuse state planning and strategic goals with the state attempting to become an arbiter of offshore renewable energy (ORE) technologies and energy transfer feasibility. A strategic role for the state should take the form of that adopted by our Scottish and French neighbours: setting targets of scale, identifying the largest number of areas suited to development and assessing the technical experience and financial resources available to the competitors in a tender for options process.
The challenge of ORE is critical to avoiding devastating climate change impacts well within our own lifetimes. The Policy determined now must take into account the critical nature of what confronts not just Ireland, but the continent of Europe and beyond.