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THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE to Hurricane Ophelia shows three things. A “better safe than sorry” approach, officially called the precautionary principle. A willingness to cause disruption to apply that principle, for example by closing schools for a second day. And a new level of leadership, coordination and decisiveness in the State’s emergency planning.
Unfortunately, all three of these things are entirely absent in the government’s approach to preventing extreme weather events like Ophelia becoming more common.
Ophelia is what climate change looks like
Make no mistake, Ophelia is what climate change looks like. Every storm now bears the fingerprint of global warming. The Earth’s atmosphere is 1C warmer than it was 150 years ago. That additional energy makes stronger storms more likely.
Moreover, hurricanes can only develop over very warm water so they have been rare in the eastern Atlantic. As the ocean temperature increases, such hurricanes become more likely.
Preventing runaway climate change is a real emergency. The storms and floods of recent years took place in a 1 degree warmer world. 2 degrees is regarded is as the upper limit of what human civilisation could cope with.
All the pledges to cut pollution by countries across the world still leave us on track for 3 degrees of warming. And current policies have us on track for a 4 degree warmer world, which the World Bank has concluded is “incompatible with an organised global community”.
We are the third highest polluters per person in the EU
Ireland is among the worst countries in the world when it comes to tackling the climate emergency. We are the third highest polluters per person in the EU and the eighth highest in the rich world. We are one of only 5 countries in the EU which is going to miss its 2020 targets, and the only one of those where emissions are predicted to continue rising.
John Fitzgerald, the economist who chairs the official Climate Advisory Council, described the government’s recent plan on cutting pollution as “100 bright ideas but no new decisions”.
Decisions to actually cut emissions would disrupt powerful interests, and perhaps irritate some voters. Decisions would require leadership. Leadership that is so far fatally lacking, despite Leo Varadkar’s declaration on the night he was elected Taoiseach that he was “determined the Government should show new ambition in tackling climate change”.
Rooftop solar power is taking off in other countries
Ministers are so diffident about taking action that even where there are obviously popular measures they dither. In other countries rooftop solar power is taking off as costs plummet.
Here, Minister Naughten’s new plan for renewable electricity specifically excludes small scale solar that could transform schools, community halls and GAA clubs as well as homes, businesses and farm-buildings into locally owned power plants. His officials claim it would cost too much. So we commissioned an independent researcher to run the numbers for us.
It would cost less than €14 million a year to pay 50,000 homes and business for the electricity they could generate on their rooftops. That compares with the €120 million a year we currently pay to subsidise peat-burning for electricity. Or the more than €1 billion Ophelia is set to cost in damage and disruption.
Minister Naughten has put his renewables plan out for public consultation (details here and he wants to hear what you have to say by Friday 3 November). And you can add your name to our petition for a fair payment for solar power here, a petition Leo Varadkar himself signed at Electric Picnic last year.
Now he’s Taoiseach he can make it happen, but he’ll have to decide to overrule the bean counters who discount the future and dismiss citizen participation as a luxury. He’ll have to show leadership.
Oisín Coghlan is Director of Friends of the Earth, a member of the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition.
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Who’s more dishonest?
Prisoners or the ones they’d be voting for?
It seams like prisoners have more rights than their victims
If you read the judgement, the ECHR (not the Court of Justice in Europe, by the way) objects to a blanket ban on all prisoners voting. They agree, in principle, that some prisoners can be banned, but not all. So I’m not sure how you’re arguing that a mugger has more voting rights than the victim or a drug dealer has more voting rights than a drug user.
They’ll have more voting rights than everyone who’s been forced to emigrate. Commit a murder and you get to be involved in shaping a government?! Enforced emigrants can’t vote from abroad so can’t help reshape the government that caused their exodus. Something’s wrong with that picture.
If you read the judgement, you would have noted they don’t say it has to be extended to murderers, simply that a blanket ban against all prisoners is disproportionate. What about those serving minor sentences?
I think it would be really interesting for Irish emigrants to take a case to the ECHR, however. It’d be a good case with these precedents.
Even more reason to leave the EU
The EU and the European Convention of Human Rights are two separate organisations.
Nick, EU Membership requires accession to the ECHR.
Do you think he was referencing that distinction or that he had confused the two? I’m betting on the latter….
I’m more inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt.
You’re clearly less cynical than I am. :-) Regardless, I do think there’s a lack of understanding of the distinctions between the two and it’s important that when we’re talking about it, that it’s clearly pointed out what the ECHR does and what the Court of Justice of Europe does.
How far can the ECHR go in interfering with the way countries are run?
Surely suffrage is a constitutional matter.
I don’t believe that prisoners voting is mentioned in the Italian constitution (certainly not in the UK). I heard the arguments being made on behalf of the prisoners and it was quite compelling – the idea that when politicians (not constitutions) define who should be able to vote, it’s a dangerous concept of democracy.
Suffrage is generally granted by the state. Should it be imposed from above?
And the UK doesn’t have a written consitution it has a history through law.
It seems it comes down to how much you believe that voting is a human right and how much you think it should be a sovereign matter. Considering that voting has typically been denied to women and minorities in a lot of states, I view it as a basic human right (of course, I’m in the minority that believes children should be able to vote, so I doubt I’m representative of the whole populace).
If you perceive voting as a basic human right, this judgement makes a lot of sense. You don’t seem to view it as a right, but as something which states can legitimately deny portions of the population.
Sorry, I’ve been agog since I read that you want kids to vote.
They can’t decide whether they want sausages or fish fingers for dinner but you want them to elect governments.
Mad. As.
I believe in pure democracy. But I don’t think they can do worse than some other voters in Europe!
Diluting the franchise doesn’t strengthen it, unless you believe in homeopathy.
I don’t know what that comparison is about, but if you argue that you believe in universal suffrage, there should be no exceptions. But then we’ve already established you believe governments should be able to take the vote away from people without any form of oversight.
I also would love to live in a society governed by pure democracy but could only ever work if everyone was informed on what they have the power to vote on, take for example some people I’ve meet recently who plan on voting yes, they can only reiterate what the TV told them about “stability” and future bailouts. They hadn’t the foggiest clue what I was on about when I mentioned my concerns and skepticism over certain articles of the treaty or our relation to the ESM if we ratify it what it means to vote Yes and our then commitments, they switch off and say “ah but shure the Gov. are looking for a yes so we can get more money and the no are a bunch of shinners and out from the fringes as usual”
These people who wont go to the bother of looking into what they been asked to make an informed decision and vote on are dangerous, and a sad byproduct of democracy led by laziness and persuasion when they will vote the way they are told if its repeated enough times and made sound the safer option between the ads for Eurovision.
Even though they will not question the accuracy or merits of what they are taking as positive points.
This can be said for people who vote the other way also mind, but since the Gov are pushing these things in a certain direction pure democracy has little chance of achieving its true potential of everyone in society making a valid contribution through their informed decision when real assessments and clear wordings are absent and drowned out with garbage, garjon and scaremongering.
My understanding of an individual being punished for crimes committed means ‘no rights to anything that is happening in the outside world. Did the crime – do the time!
It is in my opinion that if you are in prison for committing a crime you forfeit your right to vote until you are rehabilitated and released!
Next thing you know they’ll expect the jails to let the inmates nip down to their local voting centres, “of course we’ll be back, honest g’vnor.”
Sinn fein will be thrilled!
have your say