The evidence that the world is overheating dangerously is red flagged in scientific reports released in advance of, and during, the UN climate summit, Cop29. Ireland specifically does not feature in any of them, but the implications for life on our doorstep, our wellbeing and where we sit in the North Atlantic could not be more ominous.
This is because climate scientists say in every scenario, global indicators show Ireland’s climate is going to get worse; beyond what was predicted up to now. The most concerning reports detail global temperature trends; carbon emissions and fossil fuel pollution. These are not only at record level – there is also no sign of peaking despite interventions by almost 200 countries to date.
Separately, we may be about to cross a key tipping point in the Atlantic Ocean far earlier than most had previously expected; a threshold that opens the door to runaway climate change. Potentially, the most consequential is the switch-off of the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc), the current that gives Ireland its benign climate. The world may continue to burn; yet for us there would be a dramatic fall in temperatures.
For climate scientist Prof Peter Thorne of Maynooth University, Ireland cannot afford to be complacent on those Cop29 reports, but the Amoc and climate variability in the North Atlantic “are the things that keep me awake at night”.
His anxiousness around the risk to Ireland’s stable environment of 10,000 years, beside a beneficial “energy reservoir” in the Atlantic, was echoed last month by eminent scientists who sent an open letter to Nordic countries meeting in Reykjavik.
“A string of scientific studies in the past few years suggest this risk has so far been greatly underestimated,” they warned. This would have “devastating and irreversible impacts” especially for Nordic countries and the Northwest Atlantic, but also impacting the entire world for centuries to come.
Thorne was at Cop29 trying to determine with peers if global warming is being underestimated and the extent to which the key target of 1.5 degrees is being exceeded. In any event, he says we are seeing impacts already, such as the devastation in Valencia and elsewhere. “This is where we’re heading on a sustained basis in a few short years unless there is a dramatic reduction in emissions.”
[ Explained: How so much rain fell in Valencia in such a short space of timeOpens in new window ]
As for Ireland – assuming no wild card from the Amoc, such as a fast weakening – it means “more Midletons [hit with horrendous flooding last year] and more loading the dice for catastrophic storm surges” that will hit Dublin, Cork and Galway.
Climate change more than doubled the likelihood of the extreme rainfall that caused the Midleton floods, weather attribution scientists found.
“The more we warm, the more the risk and uncertainty,” Thorne adds – in a scenario where we don’t know how fast the Amoc collapse may occur. If it’s over a decade, it will be impossible for Ireland to adapt in time – if slower, it can be managed.
Ireland’s progress has been predicated on an agreeable climate for hundreds of years, and now we may be moving to where “nothing is fun or positive”, he says. “If people worry about this; they should say it to their politicians on their doorstep and vote accordingly.”
[ In pictures: The clean-up begins in Midleton after Storm BabetOpens in new window ]
Sea-level rise
Ireland has to make hard choices as it is likely the world will not contain global temperature rise to within 1.5 or 2 degrees – current global policies would lead to a disastrous 2.7 degrees of warming this century, according to Climate Action Tracker.
That means adaptation planning for the inevitable; making hard choices on coastal management because of sea-level rise; developments on flood plains and protecting critical infrastructure, Thorne says – at the same time, how we adjust to heatwaves and “flash droughts”.
It means parts of our coast will have to be let go, he says, and whole communities may need to be relocated. “We cannot protect everybody and everything. It’s not economically viable.”
Charting the future
Numerous reports chart Ireland’s likely turbulent climate in decades to come, but Met Éireann’s Translate Project has compiled with other partners the vast amounts of data in one “model” thanks to a supercomputer.
Its head of climate services Keith Lambkin explains its significance: “This means we can tell with more confidence than ever before what is likely to happen here in Ireland. It effectively gives us the benefit of hindsight; we can take decisions that make us more climate resilient into the future.”
Translate’s findings can be summarised as follows: up to 2050 in most warming scenarios, Ireland will have wetter winters including more intensive rainfall and flooding (with fewer cold days), while globally storms will be exacerbated as warming increases. Summers will be significantly warmer; with the risk that heatwaves will be longer, more intense and over wider areas. Higher intensity rainfall increases likelihood of flash floods.
The growing season will be longer while overall rainfall will increase. Other evidence suggests extreme weather events will undermine agriculture and food security – as indicated by the scale of exceptional rainfall and storms in 2023-2024.
Meanwhile, ice melting over Greenland will add vast amounts of freshwater to seas that will further affect ocean currents and fuel more unpredictable weather. This will be bad news for food production, given between October 2022 and March 2024, almost 1.7m of rain fell on UK soils, devastating crops – with similar levels experienced in Ireland.
Reconstructions of past climate by scientists at Northumbria University suggest rainfall rates exceeding 1.4m per year could be the new norm. “This would have massive implications for the future of food security in the UK and Ireland, over the coming century,” they concluded. Lessons from past climates in Earth’s long history, they added, “should give us motivation for change and hopefully, we can adapt to a warmer and more turbulent future”.
Conor McNally, head of communications at London’s Grantham Institute, has posted an arresting clip on social media on “why climate change is on the ballot” in Ireland’s election, though its prominence does not reflect it being “the greatest challenge of our time” – and 2024 will probably be the hottest year in recorded history.
Decisive action is needed not only to make our global contribution and avoid multibillion fines, he says, but there is a need to cut emissions across the economy to help improve resilience to inevitable extreme weather.
This is because climate science has a simple indicator of the future. Every additional tonne of greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere causes additional warming, making extreme weather events more likely and more intense – more destructive too. The next Government, he adds, will need to ensure deep cuts in emissions and move quickly to counter “the intensifying storms and heatwaves that will come our way in the years ahead”.
In a fiery address to Cop29, climate campaigner Al Gore highlighted critical questions arising from “the fact that the scientists who predicted all of this decades ago have been proven dead right. This should cause the rest of us to pay more attention to what they’re telling us now.”
He asked: “Do we listen to the polluters who don’t want anything meaningful that might reduce fossil fuels? Or do we listen to the scientists who have been telling us what we need to do?”
Applying this to Ireland, we still have a fossil fuel-driven economy and, given an irreversible climate disaster threatening us, we haven’t heeded the scientists enough on what has to be done in slashing emissions, in getting off oil and gas, and deploying nature’s solutions.
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