“In my mind the polluter has to pay” - Eamon Ryan urges Saudi Arabia to prioritize climate change over golf spending
Eamon Ryan is the Irish Minister of Climate and has often spoken about the frivolous spending of various organizations while completely ignoring the looming danger of climate change. Recently, Ryan took a shot at Saudi Arabia and criticized their spending on all kinds of sports.
The Saudi Public Investment Fund has been involved in the development of many sports around the world and has spent billions in advancing various leagues around the world. The most prominent of these is the LIV Golf league and the recent extravagant spending on their soccer league.
Eamon Ryan recently spoke at the Global Ireland Summit in Dublin and criticized Saudi for their extravagant spending while urging them to focus more of their resources on climate change. According to Ryan, climate change is hitting hard and should be an important concern for world politics. He also called out the Saudis for being polluters and believed they should pay for the repercussions instead of golf.
“In my mind the polluter has to pay."
Ryan added via breakingnews.ie:
“They spent $2 billion on golf the previous year. Again, some of that could go to help the most desperate hungry people in the world and that’s the sort of position I’d be bringing to the negotiations trying to get the fossil fuel companies to pay, to get the polluter to pay.”
Eamon Ryan wants the money to be spent on people instead of golf
The LIV Golf league is getting increasingly popular as many prominent PGA Tour golfers make their way to the Saudi-backed league. This has been possible due to the money spent by PIF and the massive prize purses involved in each championship.
Eamon Ryan criticized this spending on golf and urged that we spend money on people instead. He also spoke about the investment made in fossil fuels instead of clean energy and believes that the fossil fuels profit should be invested in developing a clean energy system.
“That’s profits that is coming from the use of fossil fuels, and can we not redirect some of those profits – and we could start it on a voluntary basis – in the sort of ideas we’re sharing, that those countries invest in the switch to clean energy."
Ryan added:
“My argument is rather than spending it on golf, we could spend it on people.”
Although Eamon Ryan has made some strong points regarding the PIF spending on LIV Golf, his comments came during a precarious time as the tension between the PGA Tour and the Saudi-backed golf league has reached an all-time high.