The emissions profile highlights how electricity use for street lighting makes up half of the energy used by SDCC. It is also stated that this electricity use accounts for much of the Greenhouse Gas emissions from SDCC. However this assumes that the electricity is produced with fossil fuels. This will change over time and thus it is important to focus on the direct emissions for which SDCC has responsibility i.e the fossil fuels used in buildings, transport and machinery use. That said the use of diesel propelled vehicles and machinery may far more economic in the short term given that the actual number of motors involved is small and the benefits in terms of public realm and roads/footpaths and bike lanes are immense.
5a. Our Climate Actions - Energy and Buildings
A big issue for the Social Democrats is that even though SDCC own over 10,000 social housing dwellings, the energy and emissions profiles from same are disregarded in this Climate Action Plan. This mean that this is a case of the classic economic problem, the principal agent dilemma, whereby in this case, the landlord has no motivation to improve the efficiency of the dwellings as he does not pay the energy bills, while the tenant for the most part cannot afford to make the necessary investment and anyway cannot access SEAI grants. Given that SDCC are the current pioneers of District Heating in Ireland, one way this matter could be addressed is to conduct system level studies to investigate which would be cheaper - to roll out a district heating network to provide heat in social housing or on the other hand to retrofit the same social housing dwellings. If a district heating network would be cheaper and easier to implement maybe this is the solution to reduce the use of fossil fuels in Social Housing, and at the same time improve comfort and air quality.
5c. Our Climate Actions - Flood Resilience
The spate of flooding in Ireland in Autumn 2023 is literally bringing climate change home to people. In this regard it is exemplary that the various flood alleviation schemes on the rivers of SDCC are already underway. However more could be done to highlight this work and it's benefits and attempt to get more engagement. For example there is almost no awareness among the general public of how increased paving/cobblelocking of driveways and back gardens causes more water to run into the storm water system thus putting more water into the same rivers. Homes that are currently in areas with risk of flooding are finding expensive insurance premiums and thus they could benefit economically from flood alleviation schemes changing the flood status of their area. This is more reason to highlight these schemes to the general public.
5b. Our Climate Actions - Transport
The single biggest climate action that SDCC could take is to roll out cycling infrastructure across the county. The vision of Cycle South Dublin is great but there does not seem to be adequate staff employed to implement it. The Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan is even more ambitious but far from being realised. SDCC's own research shows that there is a significant percentage of the population that would cycle if they thought that it was safe. Such a modal shift would reduce regional emissions and congestion. A new motivation to roll out cycling infrastructure is to provide space for e-scooters which are currently using footpaths and unfortunately causing some nuisance there to pedestrians. E-scooters are cheaper to run than cars, have far lower emissions and lower ecological footprint and ecological rucksack than cars, and also take cars off the road. Thus an extensive protected cycling network can achieve many goals simultaneously.
5d. Our Climate Actions - Nature-Based Solutions
SDCC has increased the number of trees it has planted in recent years and this is to be commended. Voluntary groups have planted 'Pocket Forests' in schools and sometimes in SDCC parks and this is also a commendable initiative. However it has become increasingly apparent that SDCC does not own so much land and thus the tree planting it can carry out, which is what people want it to do, is limited. Thus the Social Democrats call for SDCC to engage with central government to access funding to purchase land, perhaps in the Dublin Mountains to plant Native Irish forests.
Observations
The emissions profile highlights how electricity use for street lighting makes up half of the energy used by SDCC. It is also stated that this electricity use accounts for much of the Greenhouse Gas emissions from SDCC. However this assumes that the electricity is produced with fossil fuels. This will change over time and thus it is important to focus on the direct emissions for which SDCC has responsibility i.e the fossil fuels used in buildings, transport and machinery use. That said the use of diesel propelled vehicles and machinery may far more economic in the short term given that the actual number of motors involved is small and the benefits in terms of public realm and roads/footpaths and bike lanes are immense.
A big issue for the Social Democrats is that even though SDCC own over 10,000 social housing dwellings, the energy and emissions profiles from same are disregarded in this Climate Action Plan. This mean that this is a case of the classic economic problem, the principal agent dilemma, whereby in this case, the landlord has no motivation to improve the efficiency of the dwellings as he does not pay the energy bills, while the tenant for the most part cannot afford to make the necessary investment and anyway cannot access SEAI grants. Given that SDCC are the current pioneers of District Heating in Ireland, one way this matter could be addressed is to conduct system level studies to investigate which would be cheaper - to roll out a district heating network to provide heat in social housing or on the other hand to retrofit the same social housing dwellings. If a district heating network would be cheaper and easier to implement maybe this is the solution to reduce the use of fossil fuels in Social Housing, and at the same time improve comfort and air quality.
The spate of flooding in Ireland in Autumn 2023 is literally bringing climate change home to people. In this regard it is exemplary that the various flood alleviation schemes on the rivers of SDCC are already underway. However more could be done to highlight this work and it's benefits and attempt to get more engagement. For example there is almost no awareness among the general public of how increased paving/cobblelocking of driveways and back gardens causes more water to run into the storm water system thus putting more water into the same rivers. Homes that are currently in areas with risk of flooding are finding expensive insurance premiums and thus they could benefit economically from flood alleviation schemes changing the flood status of their area. This is more reason to highlight these schemes to the general public.
The single biggest climate action that SDCC could take is to roll out cycling infrastructure across the county. The vision of Cycle South Dublin is great but there does not seem to be adequate staff employed to implement it. The Greater Dublin Area Cycle Network Plan is even more ambitious but far from being realised. SDCC's own research shows that there is a significant percentage of the population that would cycle if they thought that it was safe. Such a modal shift would reduce regional emissions and congestion. A new motivation to roll out cycling infrastructure is to provide space for e-scooters which are currently using footpaths and unfortunately causing some nuisance there to pedestrians. E-scooters are cheaper to run than cars, have far lower emissions and lower ecological footprint and ecological rucksack than cars, and also take cars off the road. Thus an extensive protected cycling network can achieve many goals simultaneously.
SDCC has increased the number of trees it has planted in recent years and this is to be commended. Voluntary groups have planted 'Pocket Forests' in schools and sometimes in SDCC parks and this is also a commendable initiative. However it has become increasingly apparent that SDCC does not own so much land and thus the tree planting it can carry out, which is what people want it to do, is limited. Thus the Social Democrats call for SDCC to engage with central government to access funding to purchase land, perhaps in the Dublin Mountains to plant Native Irish forests.