A three-point programme aimed at mobilising public support for Ireland to do "its fair share to prevent runaway climate change" has been launched by a newly formed coalition that includes aid agencies and environmental groups.
Describing climate change as a critical global challenge, the Stop Climate Chaos coalition wants the Government to introduce legislation providing for a year-on-year 3 per cent reduction in Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions.
The proposed legislation would also set an "annual carbon budget", setting mandatory limits on the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that could be emitted in any year either by the whole economy or by selected sectors or activities.
The Government is also being urged to push for an international agreement to contain the rise in global temperatures to two degrees or less, which would require emissions to peak and then start to fall within 10 years.
The coalition's third key demand is that Ireland should provide more support for developing countries to adapt to the unavoidable effects of climate change - not least because they had contributed least to "the crisis of global warming".
Tom Arnold, chief executive of Concern Worldwide, said developing countries would be the worst hit, so the richer countries that "bear the historical responsibility for causing climate change should be to the fore in resolving this challenge".
Justin Kilcullen, director of Trócaire, said this was an issue of global justice.
"It is only by mobilising the industrialised nations to commit to addressing the issues that we will avoid the devastating impacts on developing nations."
Others in the coalition include ActionAid, Afri, An Taisce, Christian Aid, Comhlámh, Cultivate, Eco-Unesco, Feasta, Friends of the Earth, Gorta, the Methodist Council of Social Responsibility, the National Youth Council, Oxfam and Voice.
The involvement of such a wide range of organisations "demonstrates the broad base of support among the Irish public to take political and personal action on climate change," according to Oisín Coghlan, Irish director of Friends of the Earth.
Mary Cunningham, director of the National Youth Council, said young people had identified climate change as a key concern and she was confident that youth organisations "will get actively involved in the Stop Climate Chaos campaign".
What's needed to tackle climate change, the coalition said, is that politicians and others would put aside political and sectoral interests as they had in the late 1980s in responding to the economic crisis and public debt Ireland faced at the time.
"In 1987, after a decade of profligacy, procrastination and tinkering, Ireland's national debt stood at 125 per cent of GNP.
"Today, our climate pollution stands at 125 per cent of 1990 levels, the baseline for international comparison," it said in a statement.
"Among rich countries Ireland is the sixth most generous overseas aid donor per person. But Ireland is the fifth most climate polluting country per person. If everybody lived like the Irish, we would need the resources of more than three planet earths to survive."
The coalition pointed out that Ireland's annual CO2 emissions, at more than 10 tonnes per person, are 100 times higher than the average of 0.1 tonnes per person in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Tanzania and Uganda - four of our priority aid countries in Africa.
Further information on the coalition, including tips for confronting election candidates, is available from its website,
www.stopclimatechaos.ie
