We need decisive leadership to tackle climate change – time is running out
CLIMATE breakdown is the single greatest existential threat to life on Earth since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. The difference this time is that the asteroid is of our own making.
The evidence of climate breakdown is irrefutable at this stage. The last four years have been the hottest on record. Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C above pre-industrial levels. The World Meteorological Organisation has warned that, if current trends continue, global warming could reach 3C to 5C by 2100. This will have tragic consequences for life on Earth.
A UN report published last week stated that we would need to triple our emissions reduction efforts to stay below a 2C increase. To stay below a 1.5C increase, our efforts would need to increase fivefold.
We may well be the last generation who can take meaningful action to mitigate the effects of climate breakdown on this, our only home. If we do not take action in the very near future (in the order of 12 years, it has been estimated), the consequences for life on Earth are likely to be catastrophic, and irreversibly so.
Ireland has rightly and embarrassingly been categorised as a laggard in taking action in the fight against climate breakdown. Meanwhile, the signs are ominous for our communities.
We face an increased risk of flooding, storms, hurricanes, droughts and other extreme weather events. We are on full notice of a creeping national, not to mention international, emergency.
More than 99pc of species that have ever lived are extinct. Are we to add countless others (and conceivably ourselves) to that list? Where is the political vision and leadership on this? What will our descendants think when they look back to the early 21st century when something could be done to halt climate breakdown?
We are wilfully destroying the only home they will have and what do we, the so-called thinking apes, focus on? Short-termism and adding the halfpence to the pence. Rob Sadlier
Rathfarnham, Dublin 16