May 25th, 2019
The green wave across European and local elections is a clear signal that Irish people want urgent action to tackle the climate and biodiversity crises, Ireland’s largest environmental coalition has said.
The Environmental Pillar said today that it was a heartening
experience for its member organisations to see the Irish people vote en masse
for biodiversity and climate.
The stand-out performance of the Green Party and
projected high return of candidates in the local election is a clear sign of
the shifting public position on the two most pressing issues of our generation,
the coalition said.
If the predictions of the RTE exit poll for the
European Elections also hold firm then Councillor Ciaran Cuffe looks set to top
the poll in Dublin for almost a quarter of the vote.
This would be a major departure from previous polls
that also placed his party colleagues Grace O’Sullivan and Saoirse McHugh well
out of contention in the South and Midlands-North-West races.
Both, however, are in contention for a seat in
their constituencies according to the poll results even when the four per cent
margin of error is accounted for.
The Green Party are also look set to be the big
winners in the local elections, with the early tallies suggesting that the
party could take in up to 10 per cent of the vote.
The surge in support, the Pillar said, is clearly fuelled by people’s shock at the fact that one million plant and animal species are now threatened with extinction as we run out of time to tackle our runaway emissions.
Public ‘crying out’ for action
Michael Ewing, Coordinator of the Environmental Pillar, said
that citizens are “clearly crying out” for a future both at home and in Europe
that “puts climate action, biodiversity protection and environmental justice at
the core”
“The people are clear – they want a level of commitment from
our elected officials to protect and restore our natural world and to lessen
the climate impacts from the likes of agriculture, energy and transport,” he
added.
Karen Ciesielski, the new CEO of the Irish Environmental
Network, added thatthehigh return of votes for the Green
Party “shows where the public placed their priorities”.
“This was
the climate and biodiversity election,” she said. “It is now the role of the
incumbent candidates to take up the torch and follow through on the wishes of
the people for strong action on these issues.”
In a video message released
on Twitter today, the Director of Friends of the Earth Ireland Oisin
Coghlan said that climate change is “finally a doorstep issue”.
“Now we need to see immediate and full implementation on
time of all the practical measures in the Joint Oireachtas Committee report on
climate change,” he added.
“We need to make sure that this new wave of public interest
sticks…Now we have to take it from the doorstep to the statute book,” he said.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said today that the Green Party’s electoral success is “a very clear message” from the public that they “want us to do more on climate action”.
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