There’s a climate of change – on politics and weather!

World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com

Not too long ago, the Kerry TD Danny Healy Rae stood up in the Dáil and delivered a speech about climate change. The speech was magical and memorable – spontaneous, beautifully delivered and had that turn of phrase that is very special to his family – even though I don’t think I agreed with one thing he said.

His take on history was unusual to say the least.

“If we go back to the 11th and 12th centuries this country was roasted out of it and in the 15th and 16th centuries were were drowned out of it,” he said.

“In the 1740s, we had a famine in which we lost more than three million people because of two years of bad weather.”

And his conclusion: “God above is in charge of the weather and we here can’t do anything about it.”

The speech certainly focused minds on climate change, even though Danny was more or less rejecting it.

The speech touches on two different themes that I’m exploring this week, neither of them directly related. But Danny happily bridges both.

The first is climate change. The latest United Nations global summit took place in Marrakech, Morocco, over the past few weeks. Nearly 200 countries are trying to grapple with the ambitious targets set out in the Paris Accord last December.

That commits all the countries to contain temperature rises to within 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.

What that means in reality is a dramatic cut in fossil fuel use and a switch to alternatives. The problem is that the alternatives are not really there at the moment and where they are there, they are really expensive.

There is also the issue of climate justice. It’s ok for a rich country to stop and take some pain, as they have developed all their infrastructure and systems already.

But what about poorer countries trying to improve their lot? Should they be given some leeway to try and catch up with everybody else, even if it means they might have to increase emissions in the short term (richer countries would be expected to take up the slack)?

The challenge is enormous. For Paris, every country (plus the European Union) was asked to make its own proposals – and even when you add them all up, they still fall a long way short of what is needed.

Big sacrifices will be needed but nobody is willing to grasp the nettle yet.

With the election of Donald Trump in the US, it looks like the cause will be put back for another generation.

He is essentially a climate change denier and he and his administration look like reversing the States out of the Accord. If that happens it will be a disastrous.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.