David Quinn
The target of halving carbon emissions in less than ten years will be enormously disruptive and expensive, writes David Quinn
The Church is currently marking a month-long ‘Season of Creation’. It began on September 1, and ends on October 4. September 1 was the start date because Pope Francis has declared that day each year to be a ‘World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation’. October 4 is the Feast of St Francis of Assisi, who had a special love of nature.
The theme of the ‘Season of Creation’ this year is ‘Restoring Our Common Home’. On their website, the bishops say that the season “celebrates the joy of creation as well as encouraging awareness-raising initiatives to protect the natural environment.”
They state: “This year we celebrate this season mindful of the fact that our world continues to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic as well as a devastating climate and biodiversity crisis”.
Conferences
The bishops look forward to two UN Conferences on climate in the autumn, COP15 (on biodiversity, due to take place in China) and COP26 (on climate change, Glasgow).
They “hope that world leaders take the urgent action that is needed to restore our common home”. They also urge Catholics to sign the ‘Healthy Planet Healthy People’ petition.
The main demand of the petition is that we limit the rise in global temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius compared with pre-industrial times. This is an extremely demanding target and would mean the most drastic cuts in our use of fossil fuels over a very short timeframe.
The UN Paris Accord of 2015 aims to keep global warming below two degrees, but ideally 1.5 degrees.
The agreement envisages the planet reducing carbon emissions effectively to zero by the middle of this century, which is only 30 years away. If 1.5 degrees is to be achieved, that target must be brought forward.
For its part, Ireland is aiming to halve our carbon emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
The target of halving emissions in less than ten years will be enormously disruptive and expensive. The argument in favour is that if we don’t hit the mark, and other countries also fail, the consequences are too grave to contemplate.
Ordinary households are expected to buy electric cars in the coming years”
But here is a quick look at what halving our emissions by 2030 will mean. For one thing, there will have to be drastic changes to farming, and especially to our beef herd which emits so much methane.
Ireland provides excellent conditions for cattle farming, and we export 90% of our beef. We may have to throw away a lot of this natural competitive advantage to meet our targets. But it could have no effect on global warming, or even backfire, as countries like Brazil step in to meet demand for beef instead.
Ordinary households are expected to buy electric cars in the coming years. The Government wants one million electric cars on the roads by 2030. But electric cars are currently a lot more expensive to buy than traditional cars and this would place a big financial burden on households.
In addition, homeowners are expected to retrofit their homes so as to better insulate them, and to switch from oil or gas heating. The cost of this transition will often run to tens of thousands of euros per household.
What should parishes do? The cost of retrofitting an average church and replacing oil-fired heaters would be astronomical. On the other hand, if churches don’t do something like this, then they will be accused of being hypocritical, that is, of not making the sacrifices to reduce global warming that they preach.
Carbon taxes are set to soar, as electricity and heating bills rise anyway.
Energy
We will be switching ever more to renewable energy in the years ahead, but the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, and therefore we will need back-up sources of energy, including oil, coal and gas. There are already warnings of power-cuts this winter on days when the wind isn’t blowing and we can’t import enough gas from overseas. Exploration for further gas off our shores has been forbidden.
When the Church comments on climate change, it must do so in ways that acknowledge the complexities of what we face. For example, the Church is deeply committed, and rightly so, to reducing global warming and to reducing poverty.
But the fact is that the massive reductions we have made to poverty since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution two centuries ago have been powered by fossil fuels. If we had not used fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas, most of us would still live in grinding poverty today.
The developing world has a right to climb out of poverty as we have done and that cannot be achieved for the foreseeable future through renewable energy alone.
The UN itself outlines several possible scenarios, from the most pessimistic to the least pessimistic”
Church documents should address this kind of dilemma. Claims made by some activists that we don’t actually face this dilemma lack credibility.
Questioning any aspect of climate policy is perilous, because you run the risk of being denounced as a ‘climate-change denier’.
But you can believe man-made global warming is happening, as I do, and still insist on asking the right questions and on pointing out the complexities and dilemmas we face.
The Season of Creation is a good initiative, but the narrative it presents us with should avoid being overly simplistic and also beware of believing the very worst scenarios about climate change. Almost all scientists accept we face a grave situation, but they differ on exactly how bad it will be. The UN itself outlines several possible scenarios, from the most pessimistic to the least pessimistic.
Above all, the Church must address the issue of economic growth and how it has reduced poverty for so many people. It should give thanks for this, while at the same time urging us to balance poverty reduction and economic development with the needs of the planet.