Ireland must accelerate efforts to combat climate change 

The short-term responses are currently being developed and delivered.

Funds are being made available and mechanisms to distribute those funds are being developed, building on our previous experience in dealing with the increasing occurrence of extreme weather events.

We should also be mindful of the need for medium- to long-term responses.

The root cause of the increased occurrence and severity of extreme weather events is climate change.

As a society, we have known about this problem for many years and sadly, and to our shame, we have been negligent in responding to it.

While we have known about climate change for a long time, we are increasingly witnessing and experiencing the visible manifestations of it like never before.

Internationally, we have witnessed in the past few years significantly more heatwaves, droughts, flooding, forest fires, and many other manifestations of climate change.

We have been relatively sheltered in Ireland compared to other countries. This does not take away from the devastation felt by those who have borne the brunt of extreme weather.

Researchers at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health have estimated that 61,672 people died of heat-related causes in Europe between May 30 and September 4, 2022, with the mortality rate being highest in Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal.

We are witnessing an increasing number of record-breaking weather events.

According to Met Éireann, Ireland has seen the warmest June on record on land and at sea this year and the wettest July on record, with 17 rainfall stations having over double their long-term average monthly rainfall.

In summary, climate change is clearly happening, its impacts are more evident than ever before, and we need transformative climate action in order to effectively respond to it.

This is essential for our survival on the planet, but not easy. It is one of the most complex challenges facing global society and comprises many dimensions, including politics, economics, technology, and society.

Climate change is caused by what we have been doing increasingly since the Industrial Revolution, namely activities that have led to increased emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases.

The main greenhouse gases are carbon dioxide — caused by the systems we use to meet our heating, transport, electricity, and manufacturing needs — and methane and nitrous oxide, caused by the systems we use to produce food.

Over time, we have been increasing the annual emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The cumulative concentration of these gases has also grown over time and some remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

This long-lasting impact of our actions adds to the complexity of the challenge we face. It means that even if we stopped emitting all greenhouse gases today, global warming and climate change will continue to affect future generations. 

How do we respond?

Responding to climate change has two key components that interact with each other.

Firstly, we need to tackle the root cause of human-induced climate change by rapidly reducing the amount of greenhouse gases that we are emitting to mitigate the impact of our future climate.

This involves a societal and series of system-wide transformations to reduce to zero the emissions associated with heating, transport, electricity, manufacturing, agriculture, and land use.

Ireland introduced legislation in 2021 to halve our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and to transition to zero emissions by 2050. This climate ambition is essential but not sufficient.

The pace at which we are implementing actions is too slow despite the increased ambition.

We are currently not on track to meet our targets and the forthcoming Climate Action Plan is designed to bring us back on track.

In some areas, we have seen clear progress.

Wind energy has grown and now provides us on average with about one-third of our electricity.

We have seen an acceleration of home energy upgrades, reduced fares, and improved services are evident in public transport, and farmers are increasingly introducing new practices to avoid nitrogen fertilisers.

The problem is that we are not making these changes at the necessary pace and our growth in consumption is offsetting a lot of the improvements that we are making.

Secondly, in addition to emissions reduction, we need a parallel focus on adapting to the expected impacts of climate change and taking practical actions to manage risks and protect communities.

Flood relief schemes are one dimension of climate adaptation.

It has been noted that, as Storm Babet passed over Co Cork, the flood relief schemes in Fermoy and Mallow provided protection, whereas towns such as Midleton were more exposed to the storm in the absence of a comprehensive flood relief scheme.

Deciding on and developing flood relief schemes is a challenging process in itself.

For example, how should we deliberate and decide between nature-based solutions versus flood walls and embankments?

This points to one of the key challenges we face that affects both climate mitigation and climate adaptation.

We know what the range of available and necessary solutions are. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to yet have the societal capacity or political will to sufficiently accelerate emissions reduction or to increase our resilience to the impacts of climate change.

• Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir is associate vice president of sustainability at University College Cork.