Sir, – Eamon Ryan ("Why we need to take a great leap forward on climate change", Opinion & Analysis, May 20th) does a good job of putting some context on the challenges presenting themselves in the run-up to the climate change talks in Paris later this year.
His description of the Climate Conversations event in Dublin describes a convivial gathering of people who all seem to accept that change is needed but what it lacked was an acceptance of the real challenge ahead.
We live under a global economic model with unsustainable growth and a profit agenda at its heart. It is driven by global finance and international corporations which exert a malign influence on the body politic.
Stark evidence of this corrupting impact was highlighted this week with the publication of an IMF report indicating that the fossil fuel industry is subsidised internationally to the tune of $5.3 trillion a year, depriving societies of much-needed public funding.
So while it’s all good cultivating agreement amongst a cross section of society, until there is a radical change in how the global economy is run, away from the accumulation of wealth, then it is all just consensus. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.