Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)

The last year has seen an historic transformation in mankind's understanding of climate change, for which various people deserve to be commended. Al Gore made a large contribution in the positive manner in which he presented this issue as a moral one and one for individual choice. His book, An Inconvenient Truth, the film of the same name and the subsequent debate around it played a large role in this transformation. Sir Nicholas Stern's report had a fundamental effect by setting out very clearly and simply the science as well as the economics.

Other events last year very important to me personally were the climate change negotiations in Nairobi, the 12th conference of parties to the Kyoto Protocol, COP, and meeting of parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, MOP. I thank the Minister for allowing me to attend as part of the Irish delegation. I sat in the chamber with the advance working group examining the next stage of the Kyoto Protocol and where we go after 2012.

I had a strong sense, based on a fair understanding of the issue gleaned from many years' reading, that those negotiations were the most historic to have occurred in the history of mankind. I cannot understand how one could describe them any differently when one considers the scale of the consequences that scientists now tell us are possible if we do not address climate change. In that hall were some very impressive people, and the European Union delegation did us all proud by taking a strong position and saying it would play its part by setting a target to achieve a 20% reduction by 2020, afterwards moving to a reduction of at least two thirds from 1990 levels, since that is the scale of response needed from developed countries. The Japanese Ambassador also impressed me greatly with his passion.

However, others depressed me. It is a cliché, but that was perhaps to be expected from the Saudi delegate. However, I was also concerned at the response from the Chinese and Indian delegates. Leaving the room, I felt that it was full of bureaucrats. There is nothing wrong with being a bureaucrat or ambassador, but ultimately they could not take a strong stand unless mandated to do so by their political leaders, which is only right and fair. I also consciously understood that for those political leaders to address the issue seriously we must go to them as individuals throughout the world and express our concern at the issue, asking them to lead so that our countries can set an example and take tough decisions. We need them to represent us and do their best.

Unless we have public movement and demand of politicians that the issue be taken seriously, that will not happen. While the science has been evident for the last 20 or 30 years, the political will has not been present. As a result, negotiations have been weak. Fundamentally, this is important to us all as individuals, whether in the Dáil or outside. It is up to us to set out the framework within which we wish to act and behave.

An aspect of the Stern report that I very much commended, something that has changed within the last three or four years, is the scientific knowledge of the consequences. The matter is complicated, and it is difficult to be certain, but feedback mechanisms in climate change are of real consequence. Scientific colleagues have said over the years that positive feedback mechanisms such as cloud formation might help us. I commend them on making a valid argument.

However, it is increasingly clear that there are several feedback mechanisms that really ratchet up the scale, importance and urgency of the issue. Scientists are very clear on them. They have become apparent only in recent years, but they are causing increasing alarm. One of the earth's great lungs, the Amazon rain-forest, may change very quickly as the local climate and precipitation change in response to more general climate change, killing off the rain-forest within a matter of years. That would release untold quantities of carbon dioxide into the upper atmosphere, thus creating runaway climate change.

The Siberian tundra is a vast area of frozen bog peatland whose vegetation has not decayed properly, meaning that methane is trapped. Scientists have valid concerns that it may melt as the planet, particularly the northern part of the northern hemisphere, warms rapidly. That would release a quantity of methane that could trigger runaway climate change. Scientists are increasingly saying that by the middle of this century we will not have an Arctic ice-cap, and its loss will further heat the planet, since we will lack its reflective capacity. Most recently, scientists have expressed real concern that our oceans, which have been soaking up half of our carbon dioxide emissions, will no longer be able to do so, since they will have become saturated.

Those feedback mechanisms make this such an urgent issue. It is not now a question of what we do over the next 50 or 100 years. The next decade will decide whether mankind goes over a tipping point and creates runaway, catastrophic climate change that will truly threaten its future on the planet. Sir Nicholas Stern's report was superb in how it showed in one simple graph what happens with various temperature increases. If there is a 1° Celsius increase, we lose the coral reefs. In the Andes, cities such as Lima, with 11 million people in the middle of a desert and dependent on glaciers for water may no longer have it. What do 11 million people do in a city in a desert with no water? The Stern report clearly illustrates the science, suggesting that a 2° Celsius rise could mean our losing half the species on the planet. That may seem simple on the page, but how can we comprehend the scale of losing 50% of species? Are we willing to allow that to happen? That change is relatively small and does not lie in the distant future.

The urgency is apparent, and the scale of the reaction is substantial. The EU has taken a lead, and I commend it on its target of a 30% reduction. I hope we succeed in getting the Chinese and the Americans pulling the same way. We must be honest about this. If this country is to achieve even a 20% reduction, which is not as high as I would like, we must go from a situation where we are 25% above our target and adding 2% per annum to 20% below in less than 13 years. That is a quantum change. Does the Minister disagree?

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