Sustainable climate policy is in our interest
THE latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on the impacts of climate change. It follows a report published last September on climate change science and precedes the report on climate change mitigation, due within two weeks. Together, these reports are collectively referred to as the Fifth Assessment Report (or IPCC-AR5) and represent the work of more than 830 authors and editors over the past five years. They provide the best summary of our current understanding of climate change, its impacts, and what we need to do about it.
These reports are important. While we have known for some time that climate change is happening, and that we are responsible for it, these reports provide clear insights into the dangers we face and the urgency for action.
The report summarises what’s happening now due to climate change — including the rate at which glaciers are shrinking, increased incidence of extreme weather events, changing rainfall patterns, and the negative impact on crop yields.
It also outlines the future risks associated with climate change, including risks in low-lying coastal areas of death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted lifestyles, due to storm surges and sea-level rise; risks for large urban populations, due to inland flooding; risks of food insecurity and breakdown of food systems; risks of breakdown of critical services such as electricity, water supply, and health and emergency services.
Most importantly, the report also points to how transformations in economic, social, technological, and political decisions can enable climate-resilient systems. In this way, the report is a wake-up call to action. The required transformations range from human development and poverty alleviation, from spatial planning to disaster risk management and from engineered solutions to institutional, political, social and behavioural change.
SO, what should Ireland do? Business as usual is not a viable option. We need to have a dual focus on adapting to climate change and on mitigating climate change (stopping it getting worse). There will be opportunities as well as threats and we need to choose our path.
This transformation will not be easy. Ireland is an island and clearly vulnerable to sea-level rise. The recent flooding experienced in Cork due to high spring tides demonstrate how vulnerable we are, even before significant sea-level rise.
In addition, we in Ireland have one of the highest levels of greenhouse gas emissions per person in the EU. Climate change is caused by these greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere as a result of what we do — including driving oil-fired trains, planes, and automobiles, heating our homes and offices with oil and gas, using electricity generated by gas and coal, eating beef and dairy products from belching cattle, etc.
We can start with three steps:
Obvious, but not easy. We need a long- term plan and we tend to focus more on short-term concerns. This involves legislating for the transition to a low-carbon economy by 2050. We should set an ambitious target for greenhouse gas emissions reduction and climate adaptation and put in place an action plan for how to get there.
This will provide leadership and a clear signal for investors, householders, farmers and businesses of the pathway ahead. We need to then have an effective monitoring regime to ensure we remain on track.
Again, essential but not easy. Most of the discussions surrounding moving to a low- carbon future relate to the economic costs and not the opportunities. We should strategically position ourselves to take advantage of the opportunities that will emerge.
There will be opportunities in energy management, renewable energy technologies, early-warning flood systems, sustainable agriculture, climate finance, etc. We have significant untapped energy resources in bioenergy (for example, grass and other energy crops), the wind, and the ocean.
We have shown that we can develop, agree and implement strategies that have a significant impact, for example wind energy development since 2000 (one fifth of our electricity now comes from wind energy) and reducing the emissions of new private cars (by about one quarter, due to policy changes in 2008). While acknowledging the success in these individual areas (and other examples also exist), the key problem is that these are isolated examples.
We need a coherent and comprehensive action plan and we need to act on it.
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