Global effort required to prevent climate catastrophe – Ireland must step up to the plate
Global effort required to prevent climate catastrophe – Ireland must step up to the plate - The Labour Party
Labour’s Climate and Environment spokesperson Ciarán Ahern TD has said that the current Government is selling out the futures of generations to come by failing to act on the climate crisis.
Responding to a UN report which confirms that there is no hope of keeping global temperature increases below the 1.5 degree threshold, Deputy Ahern stated that the Irish Government’s failure to make climate action a key priority of the EU Presidency agenda is a massive missed opportunity.
Deputy Ahern said:
“Today’s UN climate report makes for infuriating reading. The impact of the climate catastrophe is already being felt in the extraordinarily hot summer experienced across Europe, the rampant wildfires, and the horrific flash floods in Nepal just last week. Closer to home we’ve had extended drought-like conditions recently with devastating effects on agriculture, we’ve had wildfires of our own such as those in Slievenamon, Glencree and the Comeragh Mountains, not to mention the serious flooding that occurred in the last week and in January. These sorts of extreme weather events are only going to become more frequent and more damaging as climate change accelerates. But despite the huge costs to our citizens and to the State of these extreme weather events, our Government – and Europe a whole – are shrugging their shoulders and ignoring the causes.
“The battle against climate change is a global effort, but Government has failed to play its part. It should have been obvious that the climate crisis should be top of the agenda for the Irish Presidency of the Council of the EU. Instead, their focus is on further embedding and accelerating the neo-liberal economic order which has driven so much of the harm that’s been done to our environments, ecosystems and climate. I find it deeply ironic that the Government lists “European security” as one of the key priorities for our term in the EU Presidency. Climate change presents one of the existential security threats we face as a continent, yet it hardly gets a mention in the presidency programme.
“At a domestic level, not only is Government failing to show the political will to drive forward with a just transition, they are actively undermining the safeguards designed to prevent further environmental and climate-related destruction. We’ve seen them systematically dismantle our climate legislation, overturn a ban on fracked gas so that they can develop a highly-polluting LNG facility, and give the green light to further data centre expansion which is hugely increasing demand for fossil fuels, cannibalising any new renewable energy we’re producing and holding us back from decarbonising elsewhere in our economy. As well as adding to everyone’s energy bills. They have presented climate action as a burden rather than an opportunity to create good new jobs, a healthier society and a cleaner environment. By failing to act and actually going backwards in terms of climate action, this Government is selling future generations down the polluted river.
“Governments across the world need to wake up, acknowledge the extent of the disaster to come if climate change is to further develop, and take the necessary action to mitigate the impacts as much as possible. The Irish Government must step up to the plate and play its part too. We need to move urgently towards an economic and social model that protects our climate and provides ordinary people with a good quality of life. Our present model does neither and this current Government has no intention of changing this.”