One Simple Fact: Ireland's Climate Bill and Policy Denies the Fundamental Climate Threat to Ireland's Future Security

Emissions Equal Warming

The basis of global climate reality is that the science of climate change has revealed one simple fact, a fact that continues to be ignored by Irish and most international policy: 

The cumulative total of humanity's greenhouse emissions – those already released, those we emit right now, and those emitted in the very near future – will determine the very survival of global human civilisation and of much of the Earth's ecosystem.  

The final extent of global warming and the resultant climate change damage will depend on the total future carbon emissions 'budget' emitted globally, a budget that has to be divided on some equitable basis, between all the countries of the world and with twenty or more future generations of the entire world population, including our own children.  

We in Ireland have to take responsibility for our part in staying within our carbon budget by not displaying in our policies, as now, a complete ignorance of this fundamental finding of climate science.  This is the critical basis of any climate policy.  Even NGOs and opposition proposals display their lack of basic understanding by concentrating on misleading and effectively meaningless 'date-rate' targets such as '90% decrease in emissions by 2050.  Only the total accumulated carbon budget stock of emissions is important, the rate at any particular time is not unless the date-rates are explicitly linked to a carbon budget and corresponding emissions path.

Currently, for a (still very dangerous) 'safe' warming of 2ºC in average global surface temperature, we will easily exhaust our 500 year global budget within the next fifteen years.  An average warming of 4º to 6ºC with catastrophic effects, within the lifetime of children being born now, is entirely plausible.  Only by adopting a 'safe' emissions path within the carbon budget is it likely that the world can avoid economic, environmental and societal collapse.  If not avoided, the global as well as the local results will deeply affect Ireland and its people – how could they not?  

A far safer course is still possible but time is running out very fast.  And even if we cannot now avoid more than 2ºC of warming it then becomes even more important to avoid 3ºC by acting even more strongly now to peak emissions.

Ireland Must Face the Future Honestly

Every country must therefore follow an emissions path to safety and Ireland can be no exception.  To argue that Ireland is 'too small to make a difference' or that 'other countries are more responsible' is simply immoral, these are justifications for insular and short-term greed to allow us to take more of the available carbon budget for ourselves now at the expense of others elsewhere or in the future.

Ireland's government and administration continue to be in a state of denial regarding the 'one simple fact'.  The Heads of Bill for our proposed climate legislation and the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) Secretariat's recent Report both entirely ignore the requirement for a global carbon budget, and the consequent moral necessity of following the safest possible emissions path, one that sums to Ireland's share of that global carbon budget.  

Economists repeatedly practice the same denial, even though you might imagine they would be able to grasp the simple concept of a budget.  What happens as world economic growth becomes impossible over the next decades due to food shortages, population migration and extreme weather events due to climate change?  What price human civilisation?  

Most economists do not seem to understand that 'time discounting' does not apply to a sustainable global civilisation.  The price worth paying to preserve it has to be worth paying and it is the wealthiest countries, corporations and individuals that are going to have to pay most of it as they bear the most 'emissions responsibility'.  This of course is the real problem: they don't want to.

Economists and our own Department of Finance need to wake up and smell the coffee.  If they do not help us to develop an economy that can work within our carbon budget they are ignoring the 'one simple fact' and imperilling our futures.

Instead of seeing the global external risks from climate change, which threaten our food, property and security, our leaders and 'experts', and often we ourselves, try to concentrate on the short-term Irish and the local to Ireland (relatively benign) effects of global warming.  This is promoting collective denial of the growing extreme danger that lies ahead and is becoming evident now.  It is our own high emissions now that are further compromising the futures of our children and, especially, the near future of those countries most vulnerable to climate change damage.  

Unless our politicians and advisors, and most of all ourselves, finally come to terms with the 'one simple fact' of global warming and its implications, we will continue on a highway of intensifying risk.  We would all prefer to delay difficult actions into the future but sadly the best advice available and the, already apparent, damage effects of global warming show that we cannot.  Every year of high emissions that goes by increases the amount of regulatory or other action that will be needed – ironically the very opposite outcome wished for by those who are acting to delay action.  They are increasing the potential for greater difficulties.

We have now have no option but to act urgently by massive and rapid decarbonisation of our energy supply and by cuts in our own consumption and in types of agriculture that cause emissions.  To do this equitably so that the poorest do not suffer is the real challenge for governments and economists.  They and we will have to decide whether ideologies and rhetoric are effective in addressing climate reality.  So far they are ignoring reality – at great cost to our future.

Heeding the Science Gives Us Hope

The science says we have to peak emissions by 2015 and decarbonise very rapidly thereafter.  Every year of delay in peaking and acting greatly compounds the danger.  Our proposed policy is to grow emissions.  This is Ireland's vote for humanity's self-generated collapse.  

It is now our collective responsibility to choose the safest carbon emissions path.  To be informed we as citizens need to know we are choosing between: the safest, most conservative course; and the our present dangerous course that risks immense damage to Ireland's security and our children's future.  It is our choice.  And now is when we must act.

Those who are not alarmed by the 'One Simple Fact' are not paying attention.  If you are alarmed, or even just concerned, let your Dáil TDs know it.  Our voices really can make a difference especially if we phone our TD or state our concerns in person to them.  Ultimately, it is politicians who have to make these difficult choices and they need your strong support to make them. 

This would be a good time to encourage TDs to ensure that our legislation at least acknowledges the need for a carbon budget approach.  If we cannot even begin to be honest about even the most basic fact of global warming – our own responsibility in choosing or at least acknowledging our future carbon budget – we have a big problem.  Right now the real threat to our long term future security lies in choosing to follow the stated policy that ignores the most basic fact shown by climate science.  Ignorance may be bliss but it cannot be a excuse.

Without such urgently needed honesty, regarding the scale and immediacy of the challenge we face, the proposed legislation is literally hopeless.  It would make a change to see some signs of hope in a more honest acceptance of our choices.  

Climate | Policy: Holding The Line, Bridging the Gap

Why worry?

This blog aims to look at why we, as citizens and residents of Ireland, might want to start paying far more attention to climate change.

All too often the challenge created by global warming is portrayed as only an environmental problem.  It is not.  It is a potentially deadly challenge to our future economic security and societal safety.  Yet we can definitely affect outcome by our collective and individual decisions right now to reduce greenhouse emissions urgently and immediately.  Climate change adds extraordinary danger and increasing risk to all of the future challenges we face if we do not act soon.

We might want to start talking with each other about what we can do now to limit its effects and also make our political and business leaders aware of our concerns.  One area of strong agreement is that acting early to limit the problem will be a great deal cheaper and easier than dealing with the problem down the line.

The focus in these posts may wander, but it will concentrate on 'evidence' and 'response': on how to hold the line between these non-identical twins where they seem tangled; and also, on how to bridge the gap between science and policy when they appear to have drifted apart – creating misunderstandings and confusion.  

To make good decisions we need strong evidence from independent science, and to respond we need expertise from all fields and input from all citizens to create the policies that will truly address the scale of the challenge that is being revealed.  

Climate Rhetoric vs. Climate Reality

So far internationally and here in Ireland, despite all the rhetoric and talk of action, the result has been the opposite of the supposed intention.  Emissions have continued to increase massively, most of all due to consumption by the richest countries, people and businesses, especially in the developed nations.  Ireland's emissions per person are amongst the highest in Europe.

The brutal reality of climate change is simply that the climate does not care about our wishes for economic growth or delays in action.  The atmosphere simply and implacably responds to the amount of greenhouse gases we throw into the air and oceans.  We cannot negotiate with the atmosphere for a better rate or for extra time, much as we might wish otherwise.  Smoking 'hopium' is not a good plan.

Do we speak up in support of real action or do we continue to add to future problems for our children?  Do we protect their property rights and human rights or do we contribute to taking them away?  

It is striking that climate change turns politics inside out.  To be conservative we must act to limit the damage we create; to be revolutionary, all we have to do is not act so that the problem gets worse far faster.

It is up to us then, here and now to make some hard choices: do nothing and steal from our children or act at a cost to ourselves.  Here in Ireland we could start by being honest about the climate challenge we face and encourage each other and other nations to do the same.  

We can begin to do this by ensuring that the evidence provided by a 'science advisory expert body' is openly available, internationally reviewed, and kept completely separate from political or government influence.  Our scientific advisory body must be entirely independent of government to ensure that real data and research is not obscured by economic or political preferences.  Its reports need to be open to the public just as to government.  

Any policy response by expert advisors and government can then be acted on and judged against the publicly-available, best evidence from data and scientific research.

As currently formulated the proposed climate bill for Ireland combines the science advisory with the economic and development policy advisors.  This is a serious and dangerous error.  It is a policy amounting to dishonesty, easily allowing policies for short-term, local gain to compromise real actions that would contribute to a global solution of this long-term problem.  

A Good Time for Climate Honesty in Climate Policy

To show we are serious about reducing the risks we have to keep science and policy completely separate. 

This needs to be our basis to face climate reality squarely and honestly.  Even if we decide to do little or nothing let's not set up an advisory that helps us to lie to ourselves.  It may be difficult to face the truth but any other course increases risks to Ireland's future security and prosperity. 

Climate science says failure is not a smart option.  We probably cannot adapt to what is coming, even during the lifetime of those born today the damages may overwhelm society.  Optimistically though, we really can get off the current road to despair and onto a course for hope provided we do not continue to confuse ourselves by believing in rhetoric rather than looking hard at reality.  The trouble is that we are running out of road. 

Honesty, in acknowledging the mounting danger that the evidence clearly shows we now face, is a vital first step that we all need to take.