‘Off the chart’ emissions here add to climate change poverty
THE ‘average’ Irish person emits 70 times more carbon than those living in Ethiopia or Malawi, countries which are already affected by climate change.
A new report from Trócaire, published in advance of the Citizens’ Assembly this weekend, says that emissions are “off the charts” and are contributing to hunger and a loss of water in some of the poorest countries across the globe.
The ‘Still Feeling the Heat’ report, which analyses the effect of climate change across five countries, also highlights how Ireland is not immune to floods and storms which are forecast to become more frequent.
The Citizens’ Assembly will discuss how Ireland can become a world leader on climate change, which the aid agency says provides a “valuable opportunity” for people to demand increased political engagement.
“The report brings home the reality of the impacts of climate change on people’s lives today,” Trócaire’s head of policy and advocacy Niamh Garvey said. “From worsening droughts in East Africa, which results in hunger for millions of people, to the increased severity of storms in Central America, the poorest people in the world continue to pay the price for political failure to tackle climate change.”
The report is part of a collaboration with Maynooth University, which has updated the latest scientific knowledge. Trócaire’s experience on the ground in the Philippines, Honduras, Kenya, Malawi and Ethiopia is also included.
In the Philippines, extreme rainfall has increased by 4.5pc for every 1C rise in temperatures, while in Honduras there are concerns about changes to La Nina, which increases the risk of hurricanes.
Droughts are expected to become more commonplace in Malawi, Ethiopia and Kenya. Crops are failing with increased regularity in Malawi, where 90pc of the population are reliant on rain-fed agriculture, and with hotter days and a longer dry season, there is less rain to feed water sources, meaning less water to drink and produce crops.
Without decisive action, temperatures could rise by 4C by the end of the century, exacerbating the impacts already seen, with implications for food security, access to water, health and migration, it says.
The World Health Organisation predicts an additional 250,000 deaths globally per year from 2030, with 38,000 due to heat exposure among elderly people, 48,000 due to diarrhoea, 60,000 due to malaria and 95,000 from childhood undernutrition.
Rising temperatures are associated with increases in dengue fever, which struck 12,000 in Honduras in 2013, and contribute to the spread of malaria.
Tackling the issue is cheaper than dealing with the after-effects, Trócaire said, pointing to the ‘Stern Review: The Economics of Climate Change’, which said it would be up to 20pc cheaper to prevent further change than dealing with the economic costs of inaction.
The aid agency said that actions needed were already known, but political will was needed to prioritise their implementation.
This included reducing our dependency on fossil fuels, including banning investment, making agriculture ‘greener’ and helping at-risk countries adapt.
‘The poorest in the world pay for the failure to tackle climate change’