The natural environment, the essential ground on which all our economic and cultural progress ultimately stands or falls, has barely been mentioned in the election campaign. It has taken an innovative social media campaign by an intern at An Taisce to draw even a little attention to what the Labour Party rightly describes in its manifesto as "the biggest single challenge facing humanity"; climate change.
Yet the Taoiseach made a rousing speech to the UN's COP21 meeting on climate change in Paris last November. He called on leaders "to provide lasting foundations for the preservation and sustainability of generations of the future". He made a very different speech afterwards, pleading for Irish exceptionalism. He rejected any revision of the Government's programmes for expanding the beef and diary sectors, which will significantly increase our greenhouse gas emissions. Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly of the Labour Party backed him up energetically. This hardly equates to seriousness about the issue.
Yet Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have made no major challenge to this clash between rhetoric and policy. Neither have the Climate Bill nor the White Paper on Energy, for which the Government deserves some credit, featured in the campaign. Other critical environmental issues like flooding, uplands management, resources for conservation, damage to our peatlands and biodiversity loss have also been largely ignored.
Some attribute this silence to the exclusion of the Green Party from TV debates. But we should not be dependent on a single party on such crucial questions. It is said that these topics are too technical, or too controversial, or both, for politicians to raise them at election time; that the electorate is averse to long-term issues.
But the impact of environmental damage is no distant issue. We urgently need politicians to take into account the environmental costs – and benefits – of all economic and social policies. The treatment of the environment by most parties in the campaign represents a disturbingly symptomatic failure of political vision and leadership.