We must act on climate policies now
»»Robinson’s tips for planet »»Leaders told to plan ahead
Ex-president Mary Robinson has simple advice for our new Taoiseach: Ireland must do more to implement its climate policies.
The Elders chair also called on leaders to take a more “long-view” approach when it comes to solving world crises at the fourth annual DCU Centre for Climate and Society conference yesterday.
She said the State “to its credit, has good climate policies... but Ireland’s not implementing”.
Mrs Robinson added: “The fact that we are on track for a 29% reduction rather than a 50% reduction [in emissions] by 2030 is not good.
“We are a country that benefited from fossil fuel, we have that responsibility and we should be doing far more tangible stuff at every level and in every capacity.
“We should be... incentivising more, spending more money cleverly now because otherwise, the future will be even more grim for farmers and grim for others.
“Time is of the essence. We have a beautiful island. We could make it the greenest and most sustainable island in the world and everybody would benefit.”
Mrs Robinson believes one of the “blocks to moving faster” on climate change “is where the money is going in our very strange world”.
HARMFUL
In her keynote address, she outlined how the world is “spending $1.8trillion every year on what is harming us... fossil fuel in particular and other harmful measures”.
She added: “If you could switch that money, it would help enormously.
“We need to know our power. There are so many people around the world who are working very hard to get clean energy through and deal with biodiversity.
“This includes, in particular, indigenous communities, young people and business leaders who are on the right side, entrepreneurs, artists [etc].
“All moving but not connected... not sensing there’s a powerful movement that governments should be listening to.
“It’s estimated the fossil fuel lobby spends $4billion a year on undermining all the efforts, muddying the science... pretending, doing PR, stupid stuff.
“That’s very powerful and it’s not countered properly by huge communications on the right side.”
To counteract that rhetoric, Mrs Robinson says the Elders have “come up with the dandelion” as a symbol for the “right side”.
The Dandelion Project is a women-led campaign for climate justice but “not women only”.
She added: “You could eat and drink every part of the dandelion and also the roots of the dandelion take toxins from the human body. We are increasingly seeing the need for leadership using this symbol.
“What we call for is long-view leadership... leadership that actually tries to address very serious existential threats, like the climate and nature crisis, like the pandemic crisis because we are still not coming well out of Covid, we’re not ready for the next pandemic, and thirdly nuclear weapons.
“So we want long-view leadership, looking also at the potential of artificial intelligence across those three existential threats.”
■ Go to www.projectdandelion.com