Sir, – Regarding climate action, there is a glaring and increasing chasm between Government policy and the mindset and understanding of the general public in Ireland.
The recent Climate Conversation 2023 report conducted for the Department of the Environment emphasises this growing dichotomy and clearly explains the divergence between official policy and the public view.
This gap was further highlighted by the results of the recent local government and EU elections where the Green Party vote was severely dented, having lost its two MEPs and half its councillors.
Climate matters barely featured in the run-up to the elections, despite the daily evidence of climate-related disasters across the world and the constant outpourings of NGOs, commentators and academics conflating Ireland’s miniscule responsibility for global warming with the major current and historical polluters in the G7 and G20 countries.
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It would be wrong, however, to characterise Irish people as apathetic, foolish or irresponsible in their attitude to global warming and climate change.
Clearly there is a realisation that Ireland is a small island with a relatively tiny landmass and no historical responsibility for global warming. This irrefutable fact is confirmed by the renowned UN Framework Convention on Climate Change which states that our CO2 emissions contribution is a mere 0.11 per cent of the world total.
Recent reports from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have stated that we will miss our 2025 as well as our 2030 EU target of a 51 per cent reduction in CO2 emissions but will achieve a creditable 29 per cent if current plans come to fruition.
However, the EPA and the Climate Action Advisory Council have stated that we must do a lot more to achieve clearly unattainable targets and this will include seriously disruptive and draconian measures imposed across all sectors of society, diverting billions of taxpayers’ hard-earned money and having minimal effect on global warming.
Given its current attitude, the well-informed Irish public will not be dragooned into accepting such measures.
The Government should, however, accept the pragmatic advice of the UN Intergovernmental Convention on Climate Change, to act commensurate with our responsibility for global warming and immediately focus our resources on resilience and adaptation against the ravages of global warming to come, compliments of the major polluters in the G7 and G20 countries. – Yours, etc,
JOHN LEAHY,
Cork.