The Climate Change Advisory Council has said that Ireland is not currently prepared for the impacts of extreme weather conditions following this week’s heatwave.
The Council are urging the government to invest more money into infrastructure that can be severely damaged by the effects of climate change. Damage to roads and rail lines was recorded in parts of the UK as temperatures soared in recent days.
“We have to think about whether our airports and our buildings can be resilient in the face of climate change. The preparation needs to be done in a coordinated way across all sectors,” the council’s chairperson Marie Donnelly told Morning Ireland.
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The Council has submitted 34 recommendations to the National Adaptation Framework review. It concluded that Ireland’s focuses too often on preventing climate change that is yet to occur rather than addressing the impact of environmental threats already affecting the country.
The government is currently attempting to reduce carbon emissions by an ambitious 51 per cent by 2025. Ms Donnelly said the high target is something to be proud of but that all sectors need to pull their weight to make the transformation.
She added: “It’s going to be a really challenging target to achieve. That will apply to all sectors. It’s transport, it’s buildings, it’s our power system and not just agriculture. It doesn’t matter where you live, rural or urban. We all have to make a change."
The Joint Committee of Agriculture is set to meet for discussions on reducing methane emissions, a gas that comes from livestock, in the coming days. Figures on the reduction of carbon emissions in 2021 are also set to be released by the Environmental Protection Agency shortly.
The budgeting for climate emergencies was also discussed on the programme. Marie argued that saving up for weather related damage is worth the cost in the long term.
“These climate events cost a lot of money. The storms and subsequent damage are unplanned expenditure, which makes it even more difficult to access the money. It is cost effective to save now, spend later,” she concluded.
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