Irish people as much to blame as Government for failing to meet climate change targets, expert says

Prof Thorne said residents in places like Midleton in East Cork were 'just lucky' storm surges that have hit Ireland happened to have hit at times of low tide, rather than high tide. Picture: Eddie O'Hare

The Irish people and successive governments are equally to blame for why Ireland is on course to miss its emission reduction targets, according to a leading climate change expert.

Professor Peter Thorne, who is professor in physical geography (climate change) at Maynooth University, said the Government had “failed to grapple with the difficult decisions required”.

However, the director of the Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units group also said: “Citizens, equally, have not taken actions that they themselves can take.

There are very few citizens who have done full retrofitted housing, who have undertaken to move to electric vehicles or even better, active or public transport, or who have changed their diets.

His comments come as Hurricane Melissa brought catastrophe in Jamaica, as 300km/h winds and landslides left three-quarters of the island without power in the worst storm to hit for more than a century, before moving towards Cuba on Wednesday.

The category 5 storm, the strongest possible on the Saffir-Simpson scale, is seen as the latest manifestation of global warming and climate change. Scientists have said Hurricane Melissa was more intense than normal due to warming oceans around the world.

UN secretary general António Guterres has said it is now “inevitable” humanity will not meet targets set out in the 2015 Paris climate agreement, with “devastating consequences” for the world.

Adopted by 195 countries at the UN climate change Cop21 summit in Paris in 2015, it set out obligations to limit global warming to 1.5C, compared to pre-industrial levels, to stave off the worst of climate change effects.

If the world does not do this, the UN has warned far more severe climate change impacts, including more frequent and severe droughts, heatwaves, and rainfall, will be “unleashed”.

Prof Thorne said while there were very obvious impacts of climate change in other countries, it will always ripple back and affect Ireland.

He said residents in places like Midleton in East Cork or along the banks of the Liffey in Dublin were “just lucky” storm surges that have hit Ireland happened to have hit at times of low tide, rather than high tide.

“The Midleton flooding could have been an order of magnitude worse than it was if the floods had happened at high tide.

“1.5C will have even more devastating consequences than the 1.3C or 1.4C world we're living in today. Impacts increase with temperature change across the planet, and that's why, even if we miss 1.5 — which we now are all but guaranteed to — that's not a reason to throw our hands up in despair and say, ‘let's keep polluting’."

Diarmuid Torney, associate professor in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University, said Mr Guterres’ comments were not so much a wake-up call because it was what scientists had been saying for years.

“I think people have been hitting the snooze button on the various wake-up calls over the years and they need to stop. We owe it to the children and the young people of today who don’t often have a say in decision-making."

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