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Time for European election candidates to get their ducks in a row

McGuinness confirms she won’t be running for re-election as MEP while stark UN warning on climate action paints grim picture

European Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union Mairead McGuinness. Photograph: Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

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Pat Leahy
Tue Nov 21 2023 - 07:38

We’re not going quick enough. That was the message from the UN on climate action in advance of the next climate summit, which makes for our lead story this morning.

The UN Environmental Programme issued its latest emissions gap report yesterday, and concluded that pledges to reduce carbon emissions under the 2015 Paris Agreement are insufficient to limit warming sufficiently to avoid potential catastrophe, and that global temperatures are on track for a 3-degree rise – a level widely expected by climate scientists to have desperate implications for billions of people.

The world, it reports, is setting “alarming emissions and temperature records which intensify extreme weather events and other climate impacts across the globe”.

It says that “global low-carbon transformations” are needed to deliver cuts to predicted 2030 greenhouse gas emissions of 28 per cent to get on a “least cost pathway” for the 2-degree goal, and 42 per cent for a 1.5 degree pathway – the key Paris pact goals.

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Released ahead of 2023 UN climate summit Cop28, which begins next week in, er, Dubai, the UN report grimly concludes that the current rate of reducing carbon emissions around the world is nowhere near enough to limit global warming. A step change is needed, it says.

Kevin O’Sullivan’s report is here.

  • In Gaza meanwhile, hopes for the release of hostages taken by Hamas on October 7th, and a concomitant Israeli ceasefire are growing. But so are the daily casualties. Mark Weiss reports.
  • That long awaited referendum on dropping the “women in the home” provisions in the Constitution looks likely to happen next spring – on International Women’s Day, of course. They couldn’t resist it. But there are some nerves about the prospect.
  • Paschal Donohoe is firing a shot across RTÉ’s bows on the prospect of a generous redundancy programme. Public service norms only, he says – five weeks pay per year of service. Reports at the weekend suggested RTÉ was planning to pay as much as eight weeks pay per year.

European Parliament elections

Politicians are never not thinking about elections, and with European Parliament elections next year, those who are contemplating a run need to be getting their ducks in a row. Changes to the European constituencies were finalised yesterday when the Electoral Commission recommended that an extra seat be allocated to the Midlands-North-West constituency and that Laois and Offaly will move from South to the MNW (we should clarify that Laois and Offaly are not actually moving, rather the constituency boundaries are moving). So it’s almost make up yer mind time.

Sarah Burns has news of the report, while Jack Horgan-Jones runs an eye over the possible runners and riders in the three constituencies.

European Commissioner Mairead McGuinness for Financial Services confirmed to Jack that she would not be running, scotching speculation that she might emerge as a candidate for president of the parliament. She says she wants another term as commissioner, but that’s a Fianna Fáil appointment, so some Fine Gael gossip would suggest she has her eye on another presidency . . .

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Fintan O’Toole on how conservative Ireland died in two American hotels

Dublin City Council agreed a €1.3 billion budget – and will spend over €300 million on homelessness, Olivia Kelly reports

Tensions rise on university campuses over Israel-Hamas conflict

Who is this headbanger in Argentina?

Playbook

The Cabinet meets this morning with a fairly congested agenda. Jack has the details, which include the plans to scrap censorship laws and to reform the university panels in the Seanad, necessitated by a recent Supreme Court decision. Instead of three for Trinity and three for the NUI, it will in future be six seats elected by the graduates of all higher education institutions. Inevitably, it will diminish the Trinity voice in the Seanad in the future. That is, depending on your alma mater, just not cricket or not before time.

Later the Taoiseach will meet with the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation and a group of Arab Ambassadors to Ireland to discuss the situation in the Middle East.

In the Dáil, business gets under way with Leaders’ Questions at 2pm, followed by the weekly order of business (when TDs agree on what’s happening in the Dáil for the week). Sinn Féin has Private Members’ business on the recruitment freeze in the health service, followed by defence questions. The Dáil is due to adjourn at two minutes past midnight.

Click for the full Dáil, Seanad and committee business schedules.

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