Election 2024: Padraig Hoare — Ireland is not safe from climate change. Just ask Midleton
On Eddie October Last Street, Main O'hare Picture: Midleton, Flooding
Global heating doesn’t wait for bills to be passed, funding to be released, or uneasy consensus after vigorous bouts of political horsetrading.
There’s no grace or goodwill period in Mother Nature’s playbook.
This year is now all but certain to be the hottest on record globally, breaching the 1.5C barrier that scientists say is the limit to which we can go to stave off the very worst of climate change.
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Ireland has not been inoculated. Just ask the people of Midleton, many of whom worry every time the rain hits the roof slates that little bit harder than usual, following devastating flooding in the East Cork town in October 2023.
If hitting 1.5C means the likes of Storm Babet in Ireland or the recent carnage in Valencia become the norm, then imagine the brutality of a 2C rise. Science has already produced evidence such events were exacerbated because of climate change.
With the way things are currently, the world could even reach 4C above the pre-industrial period of 1850 to 1900 — according to scientific modelling, such a rise would make vast swathes of the planet unlivable.
Yet for all the dire warnings sounded over and over again in recent decades, the twin climate and biodiversity crises are never the top of the agenda in the eyes of political parties or voters.
Figures from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) this year suggest that more than a third of people in Ireland are alarmed about climate change and see it as a real and immediate threat. The EPA study also found almost half of the population (48%) were “concerned” about climate change, and support policies being taken to address it.
Yet, trying to get a bus lane over the line in Irish cities can take months if not years, an exasperated outgoing Environment Minister Eamon Ryan has repeatedly said. Solar farms, wind farms, offshore turbines — all are viewed with suspicion in communities as soon as they are mooted.
If parking spaces are to be casualties of a public transport plan in a city like Cork, planners invariably have to go back to the drawing board, and months and months are lost trying to find solutions to a city and suburbs strangled by traffic.
All the while, the planet is getting warmer, Ireland is getting wetter, and animals and marine life are faltering.
So far in this general election cycle, tackling climate change has been a relative afterthought. It is understandable to an extent, considering the issues around housing, health, rents, homelessness, crime, and putting food on the table for many.
Climate change is a paradox in that it cannot be felt day to day like many of our collective problems, but it is the most existential. That’s how insidious it is.
The much-heralded €3.15bn climate and nature restoration fund announced in October 2023 has barely been spoken about since save for a few soundbites here and there. Green Party minister Ossian Smyth has alleged Fianna Fáil’s reluctance to green light such a fund in the first place almost brought down the Government.
Fine Gael hasn’t been much better, with Taoiseach Simon Harris and former taoiseach Leo Varadkar trying to parse and downplay the hard choices that are inevitably going to have to be made if Ireland is to comply with its legally binding emissions targets.
There are choices to be made, if only those in power are willing to spend political capital.
One of the first priorities of the new government has to be to pass the Marine Protected Areas Bill, now languishing in legislative limbo for years.
The marine bill currently going through the Oireachtas aims to cement the country’s ambition to protect 30% of its maritime area by the end of the decade. Yet despite repeated promises it was a priority, with biodiversity in Ireland and across the world in absolute peril, there was little urgency to pass what should have been an easy win.
In the new government, that should sail through, if our political leaders want to have any credibility about fighting for nature.
Similar plans are needed for our national parks, many of which lie in ruins from decades or neglect and mismanagement.
According to the EPA, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions were down 2.2% for the first quarter of 2024. The good news is that they are down, and we have shown we can bring them down. The bad news is that we are coming from a glacial starting point. The acceleration needed to reach our legally mandated targets as outlined in climate legislation is daunting, but Ireland has risen to the challenge before.
If the boom-and-bust cycles of the past have any lessons for the future, then it must be that sustainability cannot simply be a buzzword to throw about to make palatable political noises.
Ireland’s construction sector, farmers, engineers, young people and other cohorts of the future will thank us if we finally get our act together on the vast potential of renewable energy. Denmark and similar nations have shown the way. Ireland can eclipse these leading countries only if bureaucracy is simplified, urgency is injected, and hard truths are told by our political establishment that a fossil fuel-led future is a dead end.
We hold this country’s future in our hands on November 29. Climate change should be in the conversation for voters and politicians alike.
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB