Irish Examiner View: A forceful response is needed to stop coronavirus

Long before coronavirus came to dominate public debate and probably our lives for some time to come, scientists warned about the destructive impact we have on our planet. Myriad warnings on how we are changing climate, destroying habitats and killing millions of the pollinating insects our lives depend on, are so dire, so very challenging that there was almost a visceral rejection. The scale of the challenge, the grimness of the advice was, and is, so daunting that trying to imagine an individual response was often overwhelming. This uncertainty, this psychological vulnerability was shamelessly and dishonestly exploited by some politicians and business sectors. It still is.

The consequences of that denial were underlined by the United Nations World Meteorological Organisation yesterday when they reminded us of what we already know: The world is “way off track” for hitting targets to curb rising temperatures as the signs of climate change accelerate. Last year was the second hottest on record, with a global average temperature of 1.1C above pre-industrial levels. The years 2015 to 2019 were the five warmest on record and 2010-2019 was the hottest decade since records began. Each decade since the 1980s has been hotter than any preceding decade stretching back to 1850, according to the UN report. Despite once-in-century weather events ever few months our world’s response remains delusional and inadequate. We will inevitably pay a price, the only question is how steep it will be and whether we can survive it or not.