24 hours to have your say on Ireland's energy future

One click now can help change energy policy for good.

A company called Tamboran Resources has just moved on site in Belcoo, Fermanagh, to prepare to test drill for fracking. They also hold licences in Leitrim. A lobby group is calling for a nuclear power plant to be built in Moneypoint, Co Clare. The Minister for Energy thinks "Ireland will remain dependent on fossil fuels well into the future". We're still ripping up our bogs and burning peat to make electrcity. And Board Na Mona want to build a factory to make "smokeless coal".

Is this the energy future you want? What should Ireland do?

You have 24 hours to have your say in the Government's public consultation.

Friends of the Earth wants Ireland to declare that we will be fossil-fuel-free by 2050. Mary Robinson, newly appointed as a UN climate envoy, has said major fossil fuel reserves will have to be left in the ground. And the Interngovernmental Panel on Climate Change says it's time to stop investing in fossil fuels.

Ireland sends €6.5 billion a year out of the country to buy in fossil fuels. We have some of the best potential for renewable energy in the world and a housing stock crying out for retrofitting to reduce our energy needs.

So please take a minute to use our handy web gizmo to make a submission to the public consultation. It closes at midnight on 31 July.

Every submission that addresses the big picture of climate change, energy security and the need for the public to fully participate in creating a new, truly sustainable energy system, will help push the policy debate in a constructive, progressive direction.

Thanks for taking part.

And do share this with anyone you know who cares about keeping the lights on, keeping fossil fuels in the ground, or keeping global warming to less than 2C.

Photo credit: Philip Milne.