A boy takes a dip in pond on a hot summer day in New Delhi this week. Extensive scientific research has found climate change is causing heatwaves to become longer, more frequent and more intense. The goal at the UN climate summit in Paris in 2015 of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees centigrade by 2050 was a hard-fought political compromise, and, to many, an unrealistic target.
The scientists, 380 of them, all lead authors or review editors of the UN’s massive Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports since 2018, squarely blame failure on a lack of political will and warn that we are moving into completely uncharted, potentially cataclysmic territory.
As for Ireland, despite the promises of the Government, we remain the third worst per capita emitter of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe. According to the latest projections by the Environmental Protection Agency and analysis by An Taisce, Ireland will fall significantly short of its legally binding 2030 climate targets.