Elaine Loughlin: Poverty of responses to climate change in stark contrast to its threat

The problem with climate change and the actions required to address it is that it’s so terrifyingly colossal, sometimes it’s just easer the tune out.

Over the past seven days, climate-related stories have included a study which has found migrating freshwater fish populations declined by over four-fifths from 1970 to 2020; a seperate UN report revealed that half the world’s natural pasture lands have been degraded by climate change and overexploitation; in Papua New Guinea more than 2,000 died in a landslide; while in India temperatures were bubbling around the 50C mark.

Such stark warnings are enough to send anyone into a hopeless spiral.

Climate anxiety, also called eco-anxiety, stems from a feeling of uncertainty and a lack of control. 

Unlike other stressors, which are often personal, climate change is more universal, chronic, and often intangible.

Climate anxiety is particularly heightened in people who feel the existential threat of climate change, but who are also aware that most of us, most of the time, act as if it does not exist, or at least is not something that requires us to overhaul how we live.

The poverty of collective responses to climate change is in stark contrast to its threat.

Bringing your keep-cup to work, recycling plastic bottles, and rewilding the front lawn, can feel like a daft endeavour when the world is burning, sea levels are rising, and at every turn nations are missing carbon reduction targets.

This week, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projected that this country will fall drastically short of its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

Even if all of the climate action plans and policies across every sector are fully followed through — such as the ambitious target to have almost 1m electric vehicles on the roads — the State would only achieve a reduction of 29% in its emissions by 2030, compared to 2018.

In the Dáil, Taoiseach Simon Harris acknowledged that we have reached a climate tipping point.

“This is not something that will happen in the future,” stressing the need to meet the 2030 targets of reducing carbon emissions by 51%.

Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said we are in “a crazy situation” where “we have so much talk and press releases and spin about what the Government is doing on climate but the reality and the evidence are very different”.

She added: “We need the Taoiseach’s Government to move on climate action now and to commit to make sure it is doing what it says it is doing.”

Also reacting to the EPA report, Sinn Féin firmly laid the blame on the Government claiming the coalition’s “deeply inequitable plan is doomed to certain climate failure”.

The party’s climate spokesperson, Darren O’Rourke, said the conclusion to take from the report is that Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, and the Greens are “failing on climate action”.

Yes, the coalition has responsibility to ensure policies to fully tackle climate change are implemented.

But placing the sole blame on the government of the day is exactly the reason why we will not meet our targets.

Climate change is an issue that is far bigger than a single government and requires all sectors to get on board and accept that drastic changes are now required.

In an interview with the Irish Examiner this week, President Michael D Higgins pointed to the level of change that must happen in the area of agriculture, if we are to succeed.

He said Ireland is now paying a “very high ecological price” for systems of agriculture imposed by the EU over many years.

President Higgins added that we cannot continue with a “market-driven” system of agriculture that focuses on volume and instead farm families will have to be subsidised for using land in an ecologically responsible way.

“I was 25 years a TD, I was in the Senate, when I think back in many cases, we paid a very high ecological price for in fact relying on an American model of agriculture being imposed by the EU. 

"We will not be able to sustain farming as a relationship to the land and so forth, without directly paying for people to be in farming,” he said.

Agriculture is of course just one area that needs to step up to the challenge.

If we are to address what can be an overwhelming challenge, no one sector can be blamed or expected to do more than another.

The EPA report has come the conclusion that all areas, except residential buildings, will underperform relative to the sectoral emissions ceiling targets.

The agency expects that the transport sector will only achieve a 26% reduction in carbon emissions between 2022 to 2030, and this is if all measures set out in plans and policies are implemented.

Worryingly, emissions from land use are projected to increase by between 23% and 99% as our forestry reaches “harvesting age” and changes from a “carbon sink to a carbon source”.

This may be mitigated somewhat by the rewetting of bogs and increased afforestation.

These type of figures should be a wake-up call to Government, but also to opposition politicians and those involved in industry, agriculture, construction, and transport.

It’s easy to disengage when the solutions are neither palatable nor immediate. 

Getting the kids out to school in the morning, having enough clothes washed to get through the week, finding time to do the grocery shopping, logging onto zoom meetings, remembering birthdays, being stuck in rush-hour traffic — the daily grind of life can be stressful enough without having to worry about the catastrophic vista that is the climate emergency.

Among the six tips provided by the University of Colorado for coping with climate anxiety is to remind yourself that climate change cannot be solved by any one person, organisation or government alone.

While this may feel disheartening, it’s also a good reminder to focus on what is within your control rather than what isn’t.