Climate change risks - Chilling scenario

For anyone concerned about the environment, a supplement published to mark the 30th anniversary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes sobering reading.

According to Abdalah Mokssit, secretary of the IPCC, we risk “severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts if greenhouse gas emissions continue at their present rate”.

More sobering still is the realisation that, as an island nation on the edge of a vast ocean, Ireland is particularly vulnerable to climate change.

Eleanor O’Rourke of the Marine Institute puts our vulnerability into stark focus, saying that if the oceanic movement of waters known scientifically as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation or more commonly as the Gulf Stream, were to collapse, “Ireland’s mean temperature could drop by five degrees celsius, moving the climate closer to that of Iceland”.

Scientific studies show that the Gulf Stream has been slowing down since the 1950s and that this is likely to continue this century. That is a chilling scenario for future generations.