Storm troopers: how Ireland can go from zero to hero on climate
NO CLIMATE scientist could be surprised by Hurricane Ophelia. In 2013, the scientific journal ‘Geophysical Research Letters’ explained how more hurricanes would hit western Europe as warming Atlantic waters increase the area in which such storms can exist. Ophelia is exactly the kind of storm we expected from burning fossil fuels, thickening our atmosphere with greenhouse gases and contributing to climate change.
More energy in the atmosphere means more energy in the oceans too, and that helps to create stronger, wider reaching hurricanes like Ophelia, Irma and Harvey.
The urgency to address climate change has never been more apparent, yet Ireland ranks as one of the worst in Europe for failing to address this global crisis.
Ireland is one of five EU member states set to miss its 2020 emissionreduction targets under the EU Effort Sharing Decision and the only one of these five states where emissions are projected to rise. Ireland’s reputation among EU partners has suffered as the Irish Government repeatedly calls for less-demanding obligations rather than planning how to meet them, thereby undermining EU collective action on climate change.
As Ophelia approached Ireland, we were told to hunker down and wait it out, but we cannot afford to ‘hunker down’ any longer in the face of future super-storms.
With climate change well and truly upon us, the disparity between more extreme weather and a lack of State effort to solve the problem becomes more reckless. Ireland’s recent extreme weather events, including flooding in the midlands in 2015 and in Donegal this year, raise the question of why our country is not doing more to address the increasing threat of climate change.
Perhaps this is because climate change is a “wicked problem” that many politicians prefer to avoid, rather than risk votes to address. In such cases, Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly has become the democratic structure charged with addressing the problems Government struggles to solve.
The Citizens’ Assembly provides a platform for 99 citizens, randomly selected to represent the views of the people of Ireland, to discuss crucial issues facing Irish society. Its predecessor, the 2012–14 Constitutional Convention, catalysed the legalisation of same-sex marriage approved in the momentous Marriage Equality Referendum of 2015. The assembly became the first such democratic structure in the world to address the topic of climate change on September 30. In an unprecedented move, the assembly will meet for an additional weekend on November 4 to fully consider the issue.
Its consideration of Government efforts to reduce harmful emissions holds the potential to become a historic opportunity for Irish leadership on climate change because the Government is obliged to consider and respond to each of the assembly’s recommendations.
Abraham Lincoln once said: “I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended on to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
To date, the real facts on climate change have failed to reach the people of Ireland in any significant way. Much of our media still lives in the past, posing archaic debates about whether climate change exists, though scientific consensus is now almost unanimous. Vested interests use tactics of predatory delay, giving us endless excuses not to act on climate to keep their profits growing.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world is moving on in the next big ‘Industrial Revolution’, away from fossil fuels and toward clean renewables, while Ireland gets left behind and faces both the physical and economic consequences of failing to act.
As part of the record-breaking 1,200 climate-related submissions to the assembly, Stop Climate Chaos made a joint submission with Ireland’s Environmental Pillar, putting forward 18 practical recommendations to take Ireland from being a laggard to a leader on climate action. These recommendations included setting an end-date for peat burning and coal-fired electricity generation; putting concrete support in place for small-scale community renewable projects; providing significant funding for deep retrofitting of Ireland’s housing stock; and increasing the share of transport investment that goes to walking, cycling and clean public transport.
The Citizens’ Assembly could be a turning point, whereupon after considering the real facts, the assembly could shake up Ireland’s action on climate change and drive a transition to benefit communities across the country. While it may be difficult for Ireland to go from zero to hero on climate action from only two weekends within the Citizens’ Assembly, its very consideration of the issue is a moment of climate leadership unlike anything Ireland or the world has ever seen.
Most crucially, the assembly’s recommendations on what the Irish Government must do to address the climate crisis cannot be ignored. As Ophelia gives us a glimpse of what climate change looks like in Ireland, our Citizens’ Assembly gives us opportunity to spur urgently needed action.
‘Citizens’ Assembly could be the turning point that could benefit communities across the country’