The leader of Fianna Fáil was at pains to announce to the public this week that he is making every effort to walk places, instead of being driven to places, in order to help combat climate change. If Micheál’s doctor is anything like mine, he or she will be delighted with him. My doctor can’t get enough of telling me to walk places, to the extent that I often feel like telling him that if he loves walking so much, he should just do it himself and leave me alone.
Anyway, back to the climate. Leo Varadkar was going to become a vegetarian, you might remember from earlier in the year. It was all going very well, great publicity, until the beef farmers reminded him that they had votes, and poor Leo had to pretend that he likes a steak after all, climate be damned.
Elsewhere, they’re planting a rose garden in Leinster House to take some of the carbon emissions out of the air and lead by example.
Eamon Ryan wants everyone to cycle everywhere, and I think Mary Lou McDonald is also committed to reducing the amount of hot air in the atmosphere, because she’s been very quiet lately.
For you and me, of course, climate change won’t be as simple as it is for our politicians. They get to lead by example, but when it comes to you and me, they’re going to make an example of us for the rest of the world.
Facts
Let’s start with the facts, because they’ve been in short supply when it comes to climate change recently. After all, the Government’s new commitment to climate change taxes is not based on science, it’s based on the fact that the Green Party took their votes in the local elections. Science is a secondary consideration.
Irish people produce, on average, seven tonnes of carbon per person per year. That sounds like a lot, but remember, the average American produces 16.5 tonnes per year, and there are more than a hundred Americans for every one Irish person. Qatar, in the Middle East, produces 45 tonnes of carbon per person per year, and New Zealand, a country very much like Ireland, produces more than we do, at 7.7 tonnes. 43 countries in the world produce more carbon per person than we do. Not only do we have to suffer, but for our suffering to work, we have to get all of those 43 countries to copy us.
To stop climate change, the scientists say, we have to get to a figure of two tonnes of carbon per person globally as soon as possible. That’s not just for Ireland – it’s for everyone. So, the Americans will have to do about three times as much carbon reducing as we do, and it appears that we will basically have to close down Qatar altogether.
The Government’s plan, by its own figures, will cost Irish people between €4,000 and €5,000 per annum. It will ban diesel cars. It will in time eliminate all fossil fuelled home heating. It will impose steep penalties on businesses that produce carbon. It will cover the countryside in windmills.
And it will reduce our carbon emissions by 2030 to about five tonnes per person. Even if we do all this, it will not be enough, according to the scientists. We would still need the Americans, the Chinese, the EU and all those countries many times our size to take even more pain than will be inflicted on us. None of those countries have any plans whatsoever to get anywhere close to what the scientists say they need to do.
The Government’s plan is completely pointless, because even if every other country copied it, and they won’t, it won’t work.
Politicians like to tell you that if only you would do what politicians tell you, everything will be better”
So, we will in time find out whether the warnings of a global warming apocalypse are real, or overblown. The truth of the matter is that we have long gone past the points where we could stop what scientists say is coming.
Now, politicians will never admit this, because Politicians like to tell you that if only you would do what politicians tell you, everything will be better. Charities won’t tell you, because there’s still money to be raised from demanding action on climate change. The Church won’t even tell you, because climate change is the one issue that the Church can still talk about and be listened to by people who wouldn’t listen to it usually.
There is one way to get to two tonnes of carbon per person by 2030, by the way: we could ban air travel, which is the single most carbon-intensive thing any of us do. A single holiday to Spain, a round trip flight to Madrid, will produce one tonne per person. We can’t do that, of course, because politicians love their holidays, and they know full well that all those Green voters in Dublin won’t be Green voters for long if politicians actually do what’s needed to tackle climate change.
So Micheál Martin is going to walk more. It’s some country, all the same.