Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I will focus on the matter of climate change in the context of COP25, which is taking place in Madrid currently, as well as the plan launched by the European Commission today which will be discussed by the European Council over the coming days.

COP25 and the European Council and European Commission discussions take place in the shadow of a quite incredible article that appeared in Naturea few weeks ago. As the Minister of State will be aware, Natureis one of the two most prestigious science journals we have. It is not in its style to have scary headlines that exaggerate things. It is a scientific journal. In that context, a comment piece written by a number of scientists with the headline, "Climate tipping points - too risky to bet against", is something that everybody with an interest in the environment should read and act on. The fundamental point made by the authors is that:

If current national pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are implemented - and that's a big 'if'- they are likely to result in at least 3^oC of global warming. This is despite the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement to limit warming to well below 2^oC. Some economists assuming that climate tipping points are of very low probability (even if they would be catastrophic), have suggested that 3^oC warming is optimal from a cost-benefit perspective. However, if tipping points are looking more likely, then the 'optimal policy' recommendation of simple cost-benefit climate-economy models aligns with those of the recent IPCC report. In other words, warming must be limited to 1.5^oC. This requires an emergency response.

The authors go on to list a series of tipping points they argue we are very close to. The report states that rate of melting of ice indicates that at 2^oC, the Arctic region has a 10% to 35% chance of becoming largely ice-free in summer. It goes on to talk about the tipping points that we have reached, including mass coral bleaching. It states:

A staggering 99% of tropical corals are projected to be lost if global average temperature rises by 2^oC, owing to interactions between warming, ocean acidification and pollution. This would represent a profound toss of marine biodiversity and human livelihoods.

The article then refers to deforestation, stating:

Deforestation and climate change are destabilizing the Amazon - the world's largest rainforest ... Estimates of where an Amazon tipping point could lie range from 40% deforestation to just 20% forest-cover loss. About 17% has been lost since 1970 ... The world's remaining emissions budget for a 50:50 chance of staying within 1.5^oC of warming is only about 500 gigatonnes (Gt) of C0₂. Permafrost emissions could take an estimated 20% (100 Gt C0₂) off this budget ... If forests are close to tipping points, Amazon dieback could release ] a further amount of almost 20% and boreal forests a further amount of over 20%.]

We can, therefore, see that all of the budget could be used up very quickly in these tipping points we hit and the kind of feedback loops that respond. The authors conclude that:

In our view, the evidence from tipping points alone suggests that we are in a state of planetary emergency: both the risk and urgency of the situation are acute (see 'Emergency: do the maths'). We argue that the intervention time left to prevent tipping could already have shrunk towards zero, whereas the reaction time to achieve net zero emissions is 30 years at best. Hence we might already have lost control of whether tipping happens. A saving grace is that the rate at which damage accumulates from tipping - and hence the risk posed could still be under our control to some extent. The stability and resilience of our planet is in peril. International action - not just words - must reflect this.

This reflects a growing scientific consensus on the science and a sense that scientists have a duty to speak and demand action because they cannot simply sit there and analyse the world as we head for catastrophic climate change.

The contrast between the science and the words and demands of the protesters and people such as Greta Thunberg to do what the science demands and the reality of the action, or inaction, of politicians is so striking. COP25 is taking place at the moment in Madrid. It takes place in the context of the US preparing to withdraw, although it is still present. What is being discussed is, again, completely inadequate relative to the scale of the emergency and the scale of the task before us. The focal point of the discussions is on carbon markets accepting that there are problems in carbon markets, for example, allowing a power plant in Germany to buy credits for emissions savings from a wind farm in India. Their answer to fixing the problems that exist in carbon markets and a focus on carbon markets is simply to regulate those markets as opposed to recognising the reality that having a price on carbon and having a carbon market will not resolve the problem and get us the very rapid just transition towards the net zero carbon economy we need. It simply will not do this. Instead we will just have a situation where Ireland is paying in excess of €100 million - it has paid €121 million to date - purchasing carbon credits to comply with its targets. This basically means that Ireland is polluting and creating greenhouse gas emissions and paying money to others to justify that.

The European Commission is now using the language of a green new deal, which is quite scandalous. It is a greenwashing its own policy - attempting to make it look far more radical than it is. In reality, the Commission is talking about a 2050 target for net zero emissions, which is completely inadequate. In the developed world, we need to go for net zero emissions by 2030. The range of prescriptions the Commission has all remain in the framework of the capitalist market, allowing these corporations to make the decisions about what they do with their production to maximise profit. That is a recipe for continuing to toboggan towards climate disaster. The only way to transition rapidly is an unprecedented change in the nature of an economy that must happen at a global level in an unprecedentedly short time. The comparison would be to the US economy being retooled to war production in the run up to World War II. That was not done on the basis of incentivising the private market. It was done based on the State intervening. On a global basis, this is what must be at the centre of a real and radical green new deal - a green new deal with socialist policies. It is the idea that fundamentally we need economic planning that has the environment and ecology at its core and that requires public ownership and democratic planning on as wide a basis as possible.

There are positives in this situation - 500,000 people out on the streets in Madrid with Greta Thunberg leading them. She made interesting comments the other day when she said that the school students' strikes on climate change have achieved nothing because of the fact that greenhouse gas emissions have increased by approximately 4% since 2015. However, they have achieved something. They have raised awareness internationally, shifted consciousness on the question of the environment and put politicians under substantial pressure but it does point to the need to do more. In particular, one of the positive developments of the school strikes is the popularisation of the idea of strikes - the idea of people withdrawing from school, college or work. It places on the agenda for the trade union movement the need to build for serious action on climate change, ultimately, including strike action on climate change to demand action, a just transition and the protection of the interests of workers. It is positive that Extinction Rebellion in Ireland has taken the initiative to try to bring together a broad coalition for a substantial march, probably scheduled in March 2020, calling for climate action now. It has brought together different sections of the trade union movement, civil society, etc., which is an important step forward in terms of broadening the environmental movement to ensure we can build for the kind of action we need to demand the change we need, which will not come just from asking the establishment politicians we have or those at COP25 nicely.

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