Alison O'Connor: We must act on climate change — but we need proper guidance too

We've had the check-up and know we must act. But doing that globally is even more challenging than looking after our bodies

Environment Minister Eamon Ryan arriving at Leinster House. Neither the Green Party nor the wider Government sell the climate change message well enough in terms of us taking individual actions for the greater good. File Picture: PA

It was your regular mid-life MOT. Given the demands of politics and the long hours required of Cabinet ministers, staying healthy can be a challenge. But from the sounds of it, Green Party leader Eamon Ryan came out of his recent check-up fairly well. There were just a few words of advice from his GP.

She told him to eat less meat and to exercise more. It’s a simple message and potentially empowering in that continuing to have good health as he grows older could largely be in his own hands. 

The Green Party leader thinks this is a message that dovetails perfectly with the climate one. If more of us cut down on our meat consumption and opt for walking and cycling rather than vehicles run on fossil fuel, it ends up being good for the environment and for ourselves: “It can’t be penury and hardship, it has to point to a better system.”

We want the greater good...

We are discussing the best way to empower people in the midst of this climate crisis about what we can do individually.

I feel I’m a citizen ripe for the plucking when it comes to turning my lifestyle and my home greener but just don’t think the Green Party and the wider Government sell the message well enough in terms of us taking individual actions as part of a collective.

As this column addressed last week, it’s an area in which we excelled in terms of national uptake of Covid vaccines. Indeed, in general with Covid, we showed we are a society that likes to look out for each other and will take the necessary actions, even if it is painful to do so.

He remembers something someone said to him along those lines which make a lot of sense in this context:  

We showed through Covid that we were willing to do an awful lot to protect an older generation and now would we do the same on climate for the younger generation. 

He says, “most people get it intuitively,” adding that the Taoiseach Micheál Martin gets it, as does the Tánaiste Leo Varadkar. Mind you, he doesn’t add on how many of their party members or supporters “get it”, or the fact that, while members of his own party do, some of them are so busy fighting with their own toenails they haven’t the time to properly push the climate agenda.

In July, the acting mayor of Liège had to ask any citizen who could leave the city to do so, as Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany, were hammered by torrential rain and floods. Picture: Valentin Bianchi/AP

Nor does he raise the fact that the Greens were left standing on their own in relation to the Sandymount cycleway as their coalition partners motored as far away as possible from the controversy during the recent Dublin Bay South by-election. He adds that many of those people who “get it” then “don’t know what to do”. 

Bingo. So what’s the plan then?

Time is precious here. Where are the billboards, the slogans, the Tiktok video gone viral, the taglines that make me feel all emotional about the wonderful new job opportunities, the lifestyle improvements, the securing of my children’s future?

...the problem is, we're exhausted 

Part of the problem right now may be that we are all so exhausted from dealing with a global pandemic and the thought of having to make further sacrifices seems a brain bend too far. I balk at the idea, for instance, of giving up our open fire, especially since I considered its warmth and heat an essential part of my winter lockdown survival kit.

What's your view on this issue?

You can tell us here

Eamon Ryan says that, in his family home, they put in a heat pump four years ago. There is nothing, he says, like coming down in the morning to a lovely cosy house. He thought he’d miss the open fire, but it hasn’t been touched in all that time.

But my house is an old one. It’s draughty, difficult to insulate, I whine in a way that does not denote concern for the planet.

It’s not necessary to give up the fire, he says, just that people burn dry wood which causes less air pollution. I think this is a softening of his no fire at all stance from the last time we spoke about this.

But he’s certain on one aspect. “Burning coal and peat are out.”

Irish people need encouragement

Again my questioning turns to the lack of a widespread Government-backed awareness campaign or advertising, such as that done for Covid. Give people a warm glow about giving up that bale of briquettes. Never have we been more aware of our surrounding environment, of our immediate 5km, than now, post lockdowns.

It all fits right in with the protection of nature and biodiversity. Indeed, urban lockdown brought an entirely new appreciation for the simple sound of birds singing, or the appearance of new growth after that tough, tough winter.

We're frozen by a sense of hopelessness

On the morning we spoke, the news headlines contained frightening predictions by scientists that the deadly floods that hit Belgium and parts of Germany in July killing more than 220 people were made “more likely” by global warming and the rainfall on the already sodden ground. Global warming increased the likelihood of such downpours by a factor of nine.

The IPCC report is all the more terrifying as we witnessed firefighters and residents despair of holding back the wildfires that devastated Evia in Greece this month. Picture: Angelos Tzortzinis/AFP/Getty

There is the risk of us all being “frozen by hopelessness” from last month’s terrifying IPCC report on global climate change. 

However, increasing numbers of us realise we have no choice but to act — but you would like to be guided to do so in a positive way rather than totally beset by fear.

Even the positives seem too incremental  

Eamon Ryan points out that we are right at the top of the league when it comes to renewable energy. There are far more electric or hybrid cars on the road, as well as far more bicycles. 

The last bike I had gotten was from Santa but, like millions all over the world during lockdown, I got a new set of wheels. I just love it even if I am still nervous about Dublin drivers.

But it all just seems too incremental — and that is despite the major political success of the Greens in getting the Climate Action Bill through the Oireachtas. Now it all has to be implemented, with the Government having to produce a climate action plan next month.

One side of this is the simple eating of less meat and exercising more, but the other is the politically fraught path to higher carbon taxes which will be fought tooth and nail by the agriculture sector, the transport sector, and so on, as well as those who object to it for reasons of political expediency.

Housing is the other hot ticket

Housing is the other hot ticket item come September with the Government’s flagship plan finally to be launched. Asked about announcements that would show real intent from the Government on climate, the minister mentions that old perennial of moving Dublin Port to make way for housing. It’s difficult to suppress an eye roll at the idea of this ever happening.

He acknowledges it’s a “fiefdom” down there but, interestingly, he indicates that there are definite plans for housing on that site in the works: 

I think Dublin Port is a very good example of just where you have to be real. If we keep going out of cities, we simply can’t be low carbon. 

Whatever way you look at it — from the open fire to the intention to move an entire port — there is an incredible amount to be done, fast.