Irish Examiner View: Sidelining climate crisis is suicidal

The target of net-zero emissions by 2050 has been set and a green deal to transform the economy is underway.

Just over a year ago, Europe's electorate endorsed more Green candidates than ever before. They may not have shattered the mould but by entrusting just 10% of the European parliament's seats to the Greens they certainly cracked it. Nevertheless, the Greens were kingmakers as that parliaments' two largest alliances, the centre-right and centre-left, lost their traditional dominance. This new-found leverage means the EU has adopted its greenest-ever agenda.

The target of net-zero emissions by 2050 has been set and a green deal to transform the economy is underway. A plan, albeit a belated one, to spend nearly one-third of EU funds on climate change or environmental issues has been agreed. Ironically, that figure falls well short of the 37.4% of the EU budget spent on farming in 2019. It is ironic too that these are exactly the kind of necessary measures almost blindly opposed by Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil MEPs in previous EU parliaments. It would be surprising but uplifting too if Mairead McGuinness's replacement as Midlands–North-West MEP, Louth County councillor and dairy farmer Colm Markey, did anything to break that pattern of dangerous denial.