Ireland's Climate Change Levels Increasing Rapidly
Ireland’s average temperature is rising at twice the global rate and six of the 10 hottest years over the last century have occurred since 1990, a major report on Irish climate change has revealed.
The report, commissioned by the Environmental Protection Agency in the Twenty Six Counties to analyse key meteorological indicators of climate change in Ireland, also found the west, southwest and north coastal regions are becoming gradually wetter, as a result of more frequent and intense rainfall.
Ireland’s average annual temperature increased by 0.7 degrees between 1890 and 2004, with the highest rate of increase occurring since 1980. But while the rest of the world began to warm around the mid-1970s Ireland was still cooling down from the earlier part of last century until about 1981 or 1982.
The highest decadal rate of increase has occurred since 1980, with a warming rate of 0.42 degrees per decade. The report also warns that drier summers may, in the future, lead to water shortages, impacting upon reservoirs and soil management. The severity, frequency or duration of heat waves is also likely to increase in the future.
This is cause for concern, the report said, because of the impact of heat waves on human health, agriculture and water supply. Millions of people around the world, usually the most impoverished, are being adversely affected on an annual basis due to the rapid rate of climate change.
Éirígí spokesperson Brian Leeson said that the issue of climate change and how we as citizens deal with it is a litmus test for our sense of responsibility for future generations.
“While the Kyoto Accord was a start in terms of facing up to the environmental issue at hand, the matter of dealing with the artificial demise of our planet is still firmly rooted in the context of protecting the profits of big business. In Ireland, we have so far failed to grasp the nettle that, while economic development may be advantageous on many levels, if done without any sense of social responsibility or planning it will have a fundamentally detrimental impact – not least on the environment.”
Leeson continued, “Environmental policy in Ireland should be firmly based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle. This would ensure that those who pollute the most – invariably big business – would not do so without financial consequences, hopefully discouraging the worst aspects of environmental vandalism.
However, the development of a long-term strategy to protect and rejuvenate our environment must be done in conjunction with the democratic management of our economy as the small clique who currently mismanage it in the interests of obscene private profit are oblivious to even the most crucial of long-term interests – the safety of our planet.”