Sir, – Gavin Harte (February 27th) avers that “The Government must set clear long term targets to reduce CO2 emissions” and “The time for a strong climate law is now. It is unequivocal, the climate change challenge is the most pressing issue we all must face this century”.
Perhaps he is not aware that the former chairman of the IPCC Scientific Working group has stated “. . .When you put the models together which are climate models added to impact models added to economic models then you have to be very wary indeed of the answers you are getting and how realistic they are”.
A former UK chancellor has likened this to a process where “You start with uncertainties of long range weather forecasting add to these the uncertainties of long range economic forecasting plus the uncertainties of long range population forecasting feed them all into a powerful computer and supposedly arrive at a sound basis for serious and seriously expensive long term policy decisions”. So far is it from climate change and its consequences being “unequivocal” and demanding “a strong climate law”.
In the field of economic policy uncertainty needs to be recognised as a central fact of life and as a result policy responses should be chosen to be robust in the face of a whole range of possible outturns. The origins of uncertainty about the climate future are different from those of economic uncertainty, but the lessons for rational policy-making are the same. There is also a strong whiff of hubris here in the idea that passing a strong climate law will somehow prevent or protect us from only the adverse consequences of climate change, whether or not they are wholly or partly forced by anthropogenic CO2 emissions. – Yours etc.
Sir, – It would be quite a shock to imagine that Irish climate change policy is being driven by an organisation that denies the scientific evidence of the extent of global warming.
However the recent report from the National Economic and Social Council on climate change only makes sense if one accepts that global warming is not a threat to prosperity, wellbeing and social development in the coming decades.
There is now no doubt, based on scientific evidence, that future wellbeing depends on radical decarbonisation, yet the NESC report fails to recommend targets for carbon reduction and consequent limitations on economic activity in order to achieve this.
Just when we thought we had resolved the harm caused by past denials of reality we find that our policy response to the threat of global warming is based on an analysis that does not accept the evidence available to it. This is truly shocking. – Yours, etc,