CCAC Report Underscores Need to Accelerate Climate Mitigation Infrastructure
CCAC Report Underscores Need to Accelerate Climate Mitigation Infrastructure - The Labour Party
Labour’s Climate Spokesperson, Ciarán Ahern TD, has said that resourcing and capacity issues in state bodies and local authorities need to be addressed to speed up delivery of climate mitigation issues.
Deputy Ahern, part of whose Dublin South-West constituency was severely flooded earlier this year, has warned Government that failure to implement climate resilience measures will cost households in the future.
He said:
“The Climate Change Advisory Council report indicates that the Government have failed to treat climate mitigation with the urgency it requires. As the chair of the CCAC’s Adaptation Committee said, extreme weather events can no longer be treated in isolation. They are climate change in action and will only become more frequent and more severe in the years to come. Clearly, we’re underprepared for this reality.
“The roll-out of climate mitigation measures like flood defences has been far too slow. Earlier this year Dublin South-West saw severe flooding, such as in Grange Park and Nutgrove Avenue in Rathfarnham, costing hundreds of thousands of euro in damages to households. A flood defence is currently under construction there that was first mooted more than 15 years ago has seen several delays. Government need to ensure that capacity issues within county councils and the OPW are urgently addressed, and that our planning authorities are properly resourced to that decisions can be made and objections addressed quickly and projects constructed with the urgency they require.
“We’ve just emerged from Ireland’s hottest summer on record. Earlier in the year Storm Chandra caused flooding across the country and last year’s Storm Eowyn was the worst storm we’ve experienced in decades. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael need to recognise that Ireland’s climate patterns are changing. Climate change is a reality and it’s accelerating at a rapid pace. Getting our climate mitigation infrastructure to where it needs to be to deal with the inevitable consequences cannot be a long-term ambition – it needs to happen now.”