Fighting climate change - Small but very welcome step

THE Paris agreement on climate change was agreed a year ago and ratified by Ireland last month when almost 200 countries were represented in Morocco for the annual United Nations climate talks.

Whether this 11th-hour deal will survive in the face of America’s president-elect Donald Trump’s dreadful, two-fingers-to-the-world decision to appoint Scott Pruitt, a staunch supporter of the fossil fuel industry and an opponent of environmental regulations, to run America’s Environmental Protection Agency remains to be seen.

Whether the deal survives the inevitable dilution in the face of intensive domestic lobbying — take a bow IFA — is another open question but that does not make it any less essential to embrace measures that may not make a significant difference on their own but add to the momentum and cultural shift still, despite Trump’s antediluvian, anti-science view, gathering pace.