Sir, – It was 30 years ago this month that the first Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report was published, in which stark warnings were issued regarding the future impact of global warming. Even then, the report determined climate change was happening, accelerating, and being driven by the burning of fossil fuels.
In the intervening 30 years, there have been four more IPCC reports (summarising a series of assessment cycles), along with flurries of activity and progress, such as the Kyoto and Paris accords.
However, despite the best efforts of the world’s scientists to clearly outline the threat, our political elite continues to avoid the tough decisions needed to avert disaster, nervously conscious of the next election cycle, no doubt.
This week alone the litany of extremes reached new highs, record fires in California, record temperatures in Nevada, reports of 28 trillion tonnes of ice lost since the initial IPCC report, and the east coast of the US bracing itself for two simultaneous hurricanes.
Add to this the biodiversity collapse and the ubiquity of plastic pollution and one wonders what it will take to generate the sense of urgency and global solidarity needed.
Why is it that we can muster sufficient global effort to combat Covid-19 but cannot generate anywhere near the political momentum needed to battle the existential threat that climate change presents?
The sixth IPCC assessment cycle is due for completion in 2022 and, judging by what we are witnessing almost weekly, it will make for depressing reading.
However, let’s hope that before the completion of the seventh assessment cycle, we will have turned the corner.
The US elections in November could provide a significant pivot in this regard. – Yours, etc,
BARRY WALSH,
Blackrock,
Cork.