NEW IRELAND ÉIRE NUA
The Climate Emergency and a United Ireland In this era of planetary emergency, we need a credible vision for a united Ireland economy that places climate and the environment ahead of growth. And that begins to examine what policies/ objectives/strategies are needed in a United Ireland if we are to should The 26th United Nations Climate Change Convention (COP26) will begin in Glasgow at the end of this month. The world faces many stark choices in the years ahead. At a time of increasing climate disasters and with the threat of rising sea levels; droughts; floods and starvation significant decisions are needed to prevent an even greater climate emergency in the decades ahead. In this edition of Éire Nua/New Ireland we have two articles on this issue which begin to ask the questions that need answered for the future.
Resetting our vision of Irish unity
BY SEAN FEARON
For a few days in August 2021, an unusual urgency appeared to sweep across governments and the public in the wake of the publication of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 6th Assessment Report.
Governments were told the report’s contents were a ‘wake-up call’. This was a novel choice of words, given that the same governments of every ideological stripe have slept through or simply ignored the previous three decades of bleating alarms sounded by the prevailing body of global climate scientists. When the IPCC released its first Assessment between 1990 and 1992, scientists projected that global heating, caused by the presence of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere would exceed 1 degree by 2025. As of 2021, the IPCC have now made clear the planetary consequences of inaction – the world has already warmed by at least 1.1 degrees. Far from limiting global heating to 1.5 degrees by 2100, as earnestly pledged in 2015 by world leaders in the Paris Agreement, even moderate emissions scenarios now project our planetary home to be devastated by 2 degrees of warming by 2040, and by almost 3 degrees by 2100.
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