Five reasons why the media are not to blame for climate change

Who is to blame for climate change? You might think first of the oil companies. After all, they have known for a long time that their product was harming the planet. Or you might think of various governments, who have shied away from radical measures to reduce dependence on fossil fuel. You might also think of the various corporate interests who have put pressure on politicians not to act, or to delay, or even to deny.

Or you might think of the media.

In a recent article in the Guardian, George Monbiot, one of the leading environmental commentators of the age, does just that. The media misleads us on climate change, he says. That’s when it bothers to report on it at all.  It “turns away from the issues that will determine the course of our lives and towards issue of brain-melting irrelevance,” he says.

According to Monbiot, the media reports the effects of climate change as being caused, not by global warming, but by the El Niño effect. The rest of the article is devoted to considerations of the US presidential election campaign, but Monbiot returns to the media to argue that, among the many biases in the media, the bias against relevance is the most important.

How the media reports on climate change is a very active and vibrant field of academic study. How often the media covers climate change, how the coverage is presented, how it varies country to country – all these topics have been considered in depth by scholars in the disciplines of journalism studies, journalism practice, science communication, environmental communication, political communication among others.

I hope to add my tuppence worth with a piece of research on Irish coverage in particular between 2007-2016. As part of my work on this project, I’ve looked at a lot of analysis of media coverage of climate change. And, much as I admire George Monbiot and his work (I’ve been a fan of his Guardian contributions for a long time), I’m not sure I can agree with this particular article.

First of all, the media do report on climate change. Indeed, the opening section of Monbiot’s article features several hyperlinks to media reports of temperature records and extreme weather. A study by Schmidt et al (2014) studied media coverage in 27 countries and found that it was a salient topic in all of them.

For those of us most concerned with climate change and most involved in the climate discourse, such coverage is not enough; but it is there. The problem is that it is not pervasive enough, it does not gain traction. It just doesn’t seem to stick.

Coverage flares up and dies away. International conferences are covered, but there’s no follow-up. Weather is seldom linked to climate change, and, perhaps most crucially, the implications of climate change are not pursued. The days when the media portrayed climate change as not quite a settled scientific issue are long gone, however, and contemporary coverage takes the anthropogenic element of climate change as a given.

When one looks at the threat of climate change on the one hand, and the lack of public engagement or political action on the issue on the other, the disparity is striking. And it is tempting to blame the media for this state of affairs. However, climate change is a “wicked” problem, and the media comprise a complex system.

Here are some of the reasons why the media finds climate change a difficult subject:

1. The news media like things that are new, and climate change is essentially the same story over and over again. Climate change is happening by increments, and such events over long timescales are not suited to the news values of the media;
2. Climate change is a complex story, covering many different areas of scientific inquiry. It is a multi-faceted story, whereas the news media like single, one-off, discrete events. A murder is the perfect news story: a discrete event with a perpetrator and a victim;
3. The news media are in crisis. Their funding model has collapsed. Specialist correspondents are expensive, and fewer and fewer of them are being hired, or retained. Assigning a reporter to a complex story such as climate change instead of a simple, half-day news assignment is a tough call in the current media environment;
4. Getting sources for climate change stories is becoming increasingly difficult, even for journalists willing to cover it. Climate scientists are being chased out of the public sphere by trolling on social media and other aggressive tactics;
5. It is one of the tragic aspects of climate change that those who have done least to cause it are the ones who are suffering its impacts most. For most Western media, the victims of climate change are different from them and geographically remote. This means they are less likely to be newsworthy.

The pleasures and perils of owning an electric car

I am standing at a Topaz forecourt in Templeogue, Dublin. My new Nissan Leaf car is charging at an ESB fast-charging unit. As I’ve had the car only a few days, I am excited by this new process, and circle the vehicle like a mother hen.

There is another, newer Leaf parked beside me. My car is a 152 D reg; the other is a 161 D. My car’s range is 140km; the other one does 250km. The owner strolls up and, as I now know is usual for e-car owners, we fall into talk about the benefits of electric cars.

“This is my fourth Leaf,” he says. “I swear by them. They are fantastic cars.” I grow a little taller. Isn’t it wonderful to have your choices validated so comprehensively?

He’s been living off-grid for years, and charges his car mostly with micro-generated power from his photo-voltaic cells at home. He is the real deal, someone who has taken pretty radical steps to reduce the amount of CO2 caused by his presence on the Earth.

Our chat got me thinking. There are usually two reasons why people change their behaviour. Either it makes sense financially, or it makes sense ethically. When it comes to climate change, lifestyle changes can often be a win-win, because it turns out that the changes required to lower individual emissions – reducing your carbon footprint – make financial sense as well.

Cutaway of Nissan Leaf: the battery is under the floor.

The first steps along this saving money/saving the planet road are usually the easy ones: installing a smart meter to monitor energy use and switching appliances off rather than leaving them on standby. The next steps are slightly more hassle, but do-able: insulate your attic or walls, upgrade your windows, change your boiler, fit temperature controls to your radiators.

Once you start on this path, it can become quite addictive. You become interested in all sorts of stuff, such as Passivhaus technology, domestic-scale electricity generation, water harvesting. You may even consider Birkenstock sandals.

And once you’ve done those easy things – picked the “low-hanging fruit” as policy people and politicians like to say – you look at the next step up: your car. A zero-emissions car, now wouldn’t that be something?

For me, the impetus to actually do something rather than just look longingly at EV brochures came in March this year, when Prof Kevin Anderson gave a talk at my university. Kevin is deputy director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK.

His talk was hard-hitting. He pointed out that the Paris Agreement was really a fudge, that it was too weak to stop the climate change that’s already build-in to the climate. And then he said something that really resonated with me.

“I haven’t got on a plane for the last eight years. Why? Because I thought: if we, the scientists who know what’s going on, don’t do anything, don’t change anything, how can we expect anyone else to?” he said.

My EV parked outside my terraced house.

Two months later, I had traded in my old Audi A4 estate and was whirring about in a Nissan Leaf. And I have to say that I am loving it.

For anyone thinking of changing to an all-electric car, I have advice, encouragement and a warning.

First, the advice. There are great deals in ex-demo EVs all over the place. I got mine at Windsor Belgard, a Nissan dealer on the Belgard Road in Tallaght. They have a €4,000 scrappage offer, which I talked up to €4,500. I got a high-spec Leaf (leather and other gizmos) for €17,500. A new, basic model Leaf costs €21,000 new, a price which includes a government grant of €5,000.

There are several options for EVs: Renault, VW, Audi, BMW etc, but the Leaf seems to offer the best value for money and is the most popular. The gold standard is the Tesla, but there is a long waiting list and they are expensive also.

Most dealers offer a 24 or 48-hour test drive. Avail of this, but beware: you won’t want to get into your old car again afterwards.

Another important piece of advice is this: check out your charging options. I live in a Victorian terraced house in Rathgar. Good for you, you might say, except that it’s not suitable for having a home charging point installed.

You get a free home charging point with every EV. But the system is set up for houses with a driveway, so that you can charge your car on your own property. Anything else – apartments, terraces etc – is a bureaucratic nightmare.

Leaf charging at fast-charge point.

The network of public charging points is pretty good, and charging there is free at the moment. These come in two varieties. On-street ones are slow – about 5 hours for a full charge – while forecourt ones are fast – about 30 minutes to charge from 0 % to 80%.

You should also note that EV batteries get very hot if you charge them at fast chargers in quick succession. Three fast charges on a long trip could be enough to overheat your battery.

Now for the encouragement. Buy one, and you’ll be leading the change to a low-carbon society. You’ll have a machine that is fast, quiet (almost silent in fact) and a joy to drive. You will positively look forward to journeys in it, and that niggling though of “I really should walk or cycle” is gone because you are not using up fuel or emitting greenhouses gases from the tailpipe.

You will also find yourself answering a lot of questions, because everyone wants to ask about them. Everywhere I take the Leaf, people want to find out about it.

Lastly, the advice. Owning an EV makes you re-think travel. Short journeys around town are fine, but longer trips need to be planned. In a way, you will be going back to a time when distance travel involved lots of stops, when speed wasn’t king and when the journey was as much a part of the experience as the destination.

 

ESB map of charge points: https://www.esb.ie/our-businesses/ecars/charge-point-map

ESB E-Car connect app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id499852635?mt=8

Nissan Leaf site: http://www.nissan.ie/vehicle/leaf

Prof Kevin Anderson and the idea of carbon rationing

Kevin Anderson, professor of energy and climate change at Manchester University, and former director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, visited Dublin earlier this month (March 2016). He managed to pack in a lot during his time here – he spoke at Dublin City University, the Royal Irish Academy and the Irish Institute for European Affairs. In each speech, his theme was the same: we have systematically over-estimated the effectiveness of our responses to climate change and under-estimated the rate at which the climate is actually changing.

We have been deluding ourselves about climate change, says Prof Anderson, because we cannot face up to the radical changes needed to deal with the problem. We say to ourselves: “Oh, the Emissions Trading Scheme will do it.” Or “Carbon capture and storage – that will solve everything.” Or even: “Planting more trees, converting our power stations to biomass – that will do it.”

Even the climate change agreement signed in Paris in December 2015 plays into this “Emperor’s New Clothes” scenario – it pretends that the measures it sets out will be enough to keep dangerous climate change at bay. It keeps alive the idea that continued economic growth is compatible with a safe climate.

Nature cannot be fooled
Prof Anderson uses a quote from an inquiry into the Challenger space shuttle disaster: “nature cannot be fooled” – and applies it to climate governance. The climate does not read the texts of international agreements, the climate does not trade CO2 emissions, and it does not abide by the terms of the Kyoto Protocol.

“The position on climate change mitigation has not changed since the first IPCC report in 1990. So we’ve had a quarter of a century of complete and utter inaction and abject failure on climate change,” he said during his DCU talk.

This seems a little harsh. There have been advances in the promotion of wind and solar energy and huge efforts have been made at a global climate change agreement. But largely, Prof Anderson is right. We have failed to stop, or even mildly influence, climate change in 25 years of trying. In fact, as he points out, that 2015 emissions will be 60pc higher than they were in 1990 – a damning statistic that show that, not only have we failed to curb emissions, we have carried on emitting recklessly.

Prof Anderson considers the carbon budget – the amount of CO2 we are “allowed” emit and still keep warming below 2C. The figure is 1,000 gigatons, and we emitted 511 gt by 2011.

He notes that the problems with the Paris Agreement are (i) there is not reference to fossil fuels or decarbonisation in the text (because of lobbying by the Saudis); (ii) aviation and shipping (which together account for more CO2 emissions than UK and Germany combined) are not included in the CO2 calculations covered by the agreement; (iii) there is no review of the CO2 pledges until 2020, which is too far off; (iv) there is a reliance on “highly speculative” carbon reduction technologies.

Communicating on climate change
Prof Anderson’s talks were challenging. Things we – the climate concerned community – thought were “wins” are actually meaningless in climate terms. Emissions reduction policies are doomed and we have failed to make the case for deep societal change.

Yet the communications and framing research shows that “doomster” and apocalyptic messages about climate change just make things worse. People throw their hands up and become resigned to climate change as inevitable.

So although the “tell-it-like-it-is” has attractions, not least of which is that it is true and congruent, it also has consequences. It appears that, when it comes to climate change, you can’t shock people into action. What happens is that you shock them into inaction.

 

The idea of a personal carbon allowance
In response to a question from Duncan Stewart of Ecoeye (at 49mins into the video above) about what needs to be done to get people to act in response to climate change, Prof Anderson suggests that each individual have a “personal carbon ration”.

This is an interesting idea – a ration of CO2 that we can decide how to spend. We might blow it all on a flight, or husband it carefully. Or perhaps even sell it on.

There are communications problems with this. Firstly, don’t call it a ration. Don’t make it seem negative as if you’re depriving people of something. Make it sound positive, like you’re giving them the opportunity to save the world. Rationing has connotations of the post-war period in the UK, of queues and drabness and lack of opportunity.

But helping people to emit less is also an opportunity for innovtion, creativity and community spirit. Maybe a “carbon wallet”? Or a carbon “treasury”?

Met Eireann – the only weather service in the world that can’t say the words ‘climate change’

Recently, I wrote about how disengaged Met Eireann – the national weather service of Ireland – is about climate change. Their forecasters never mention it, even though it has been shown how extreme weather events can now be attributed directly to man-made climate change. And they do not publish much research in climate change effects in Ireland either, especially when compared to their UK counterpart, the Met Office.

Since publishing that post, a Met Eireann video on what Ireland’s climate will be like in 2050 has been drawn to my attention (thanks to David Healy of Oxfam). Its content simply beggars belief. It is Ireland’s contribution to an initiative by the World Meterological Organisation, and was posted in November of last year. Here is the video in question:

In looking forward to what the climate might be like in 2050, you might think that Met Eireann in general and Evelyn Cusack in particular might mention climate change. After all, the world’s top climate scientists have issued no fewer than five Assessment Reports on the future of the climate since 1990. Well, you;d be wrong. There is not a single mention of the phrase “climate change” in the two minutes and six seconds of the video.

Essentially, the presenter Evelyn Cusack throws her hands up and says: “Well, it could be warmer, it could be colder, it could be drier, it could be wetter etc.” All this with a “shure this is Ireland” kind of smile on her face. Sure don’t we get all four seasons in one day as it is.

The problem with this is: it’s not true. We DO know what Ireland’s climate will be like in 2050 – thanks to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Their Fifth Assessment Report sets out four scenarios – called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs).

• RCP 2.6 – a stringent CO2 reduction scenario
• RCPs 4.5 & 6.0 – two intermediate scenarios
• RCP 8.5 – a very high Greenhouse Gas emission scenario

The authors make clear that a business as usual emissions scenario will lead to impacts somewhere between RCP 6.0 and 8.5. That will mean increased temperature, increased rainfall and increased frequency of extreme weather events.

The strange thing is that Met Eireann has contributed to a paper forecasting Ireland’s weather by 2050 – so somone in there knows something about climate change. They have also published a paper entitled Ireland’s climate: the road ahead, which sets out the scenario for Ireland’s climate by mid-century – wetter winters, drier summers, increased temperatures, less frost, higher sea levels etc.

It’s as if there is a culture in Met Eireann which dictates a kind of “don’t mention the war” attitude. They will engage with the issue in academic journals, but for heaven’s sake don’t tell the actual public anything about it.

Update – new research into meteorologists’ views on climate change
The Guardian has reported on new research that shows American meteorologists are becoming more convinced that mankind is changing the climate. This is what the survey found:

First, nearly every meteorologist (96%) agrees that climate change is happening, and the vast majority are confident in their opinion. Only 1% felt that climate change isn’t happening (3% did not know). Next, a large majority feel that climate change is being caused by humans. For instance, 29% believe that the change is largely or entirely human caused; 38% think most of the change is from humans; 14% answered that humans and natural factors are about equally responsible. Only 5% felt that climate change is mainly natural.

On one hand, this is depressing: there are only 29% of professional weather forecasters, ostensibly with a scientific outlook, who believe climate change is anthropogenic. But on the other hand, weather forecasters have always been slow to accept that the climate is changing. But note what author John Abraham says:

Speaking more broadly about the meteorology community beyond the AMS, that population tends to be more skeptical that the Earth’s climate is changing. I tend to believe that the skepticism is partly because meteorologists in general focus on short-term events and also because a great many non-experts are counted as meteorologists (including people who do not have degrees in any science, let alone a meteorological science).

Is Met Éireann letting us down on climate change?

Met Eireann, the Irish meteorological service, has just published its February weather report. (The Irish Times coverage of it is here). It describes in detail the weather conditions in Ireland – above average rainfall and below average temperatures everywhere, and six major Atlantic storms battering the country – yet nowhere in the document is there any mention of climate change.

The report reminded me of a contribution made by Gerard Fleming of Met Eireann to a conference held last year at DCU by the CELSIUS group about communicating climate change. He said that it was not his job as a meteorologist to become involved in policy, advocacy or the attribution of blame.

Met Eireann’s weather summary

It is also striking that Met Eireann weather bulletins never mention climate change as a factor in the weather. (Remember: weather is day to day; climate is weather measured over 30 years or more. Another way of explaining the difference is the old saying: “climate is what you expect; weather is what you get”). There is a school of thought which believes that, were climate change to become part of the daily weather discourse, there might be greater public awareness of the problem and it might be promoted in the policy agenda.

Scientists have been working on ways to calculate the contribution of man-made climate change (or anthropogenic global warming, AGW) for some time. Indeed, it is now possible to state that certain extreme weather events have become more likely because of human-induced climate change.

Recent research from Oxford University has found that the heavy rainfall and flooding in the UK in the winter of 2013-2014 were largely due to AGW. According to the paper in Nature Communications, the floods – which caused €600m of damage – were made more likely by 41 per cent due to human interference with the climate. (Irish Times report here).

One of Met Eireann’s three research papers on climate change.

Research by Prof Myles Allen has shown that storms off the west coast of Ireland are 25 per cent more likely to occur because of AGW. Climate reseacher Mike Hulme has given a compelling account of these attribution techniques here. The method most favoured now is called Fractional Attributable Risk (FAR) – a technique which provides a means to calculate the contribution of AGW to any given weather event.

As Hulme points out, there is also a simpler, more philosophical approach to the attribution of causes:

This is the argument that since human influences on the climate system as a whole
are now clearly established…there can no longer be such a thing as a purely natural weather event.

(Hulme 2014: 5-6)

It’s interesting to compare Ireland’s Met Eireann with the UK’s Met Office. For example, a search for “climate change” on the Met Eireann website gets 22 hits, whereas a similar search on the Met Office site gets 1291 results. Indeed, the Met Office site is actually called “weather and climate change”.

An example of the UK Met Office’s engagement on climate change.

The Met Office also runs the Hadley Centre for Climate Science and Services and funds extensive climate research. Meanwhile, Met Eireann has a short section on climate change under the general heading of “Ireland’s climate”, which includes the following statement on weather attribution:

Extreme weather events will continue to occur, while it might not be possible to explicitly attribute these to human induced climate change, the probability of occurrence of extreme events is expected to increase.

However, Met Eireann has published significant research into climate impacts in Ireland. Ireland in a Warmer World in June 2008 and Ireland’s Climate: the Road Ahead in 2013. (Met Eireann’s three climate change reports here). The disparity in research output between the Met Office and Met Eireann is no doubt a result of funding to some extent. But there is the lingering impression that the UK organisation is more engaged on the issue.

The Met Office has often been drawn into controversy over its setting out of the facts of man-made climate change. Met Eireann never has. The Met Office has decided to play an active part in the UK’s and indeed the world’s conversation about climate change. It seems Met Eireann has not.

Climate change basics 5: the oceans and the ice

This post is one of a series of post relating to a massive open online course run by Exeter University on the science of climate change. Each week, students such as myself are asked to reflect on what they have learned. This week’s post relates to the cryosphere – snow and ice.

Some 99pc of the glacier ice on earth is locked up in the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. These two areas hold the equivalent of 65 metres of sea level rise – higher than the bell tower of Exeter Cathedral (45m). And they’re melting!

Theories of ice dymanics
It used to be thought that, in a warming world, parts of ice sheets would shear off at the margins, but that snow fall and rainfall that then freezes would replenish the centre of the sheet, and there would be no change in the way the ice and glaciers move. However, that’s not what observations are showing. The time-lapse of a Greenland ice sheet shows that it is very dynamic indeed.

What’s happening to the Greenland ice-sheet?
On the Greenland ice sheet, there has been an increase in glacier flow speed, and there has been frontal retreat and “calving” – pieces of ice shearing off to form icebergs. In 2012, 97pc of the surface area of the ice sheet melted – the biggest summer melt since the satellite record began in 1978.

The ice sheet is reducing in mass, because more ice is flowing to the margins and then calving off as icebergs. Also, meltwater is forming large lakes, up to 9 sq km. The lakes are less reflective – they have a lower albedo than the ice and snow – and therefore warm the ice area them. They can collapse and run through to the glacier base suddenly.

The problem is not really, or not only, the warming climate. It is that the glaciers in Greenland are flowing more quickly – one at Jakobshavn Isbrae is flowing twice as fast as normal, which brings more ice to the margins. This ice is then lost as icebergs, which in turn contribute to sea level rise. At Jakobshavn Isbrae, the problem was that a floating sheet of ice – an ice tongue at the mouth of an inlet – was acting as a buttress and stopping the ice from flowing any further. When the ice-tongue melted, the buttress was removed and the ice sheet could flow unimpeded.

How it works
This is a neat explanation of input (snow) and output (melt) from the Greenland icesheet, which covers 80pc of the island of Greenland’s surface. It’s taken from an ice-monitoring site run by the Danish government (Greenmark is a Danish territory):

Until recently, the mass was roughly in at state of balance. That is, the amount of snow falling on the surface was the same as the mass leaving the ice sheet as melt water runoff or discharge of icebergs. The Greenland Ice Sheet now loses more mass than it receives. A model of the mass balance that includes data even before the satellite-era shows that since 1840, precipitation (in the form of snow) has risen by 12-20 %, the amount of melt water runoff has increased by approximately 60 %, and the output from glaciers has risen by approximately 40 %.

The Antarctic ice sheet
The ice sheet in the Antarctic is even more precarious because so much of it lies below sea level. If the “buttresses” that stop the glaciers flowing towards the sea were to be removed, there could be serious mass loss.

Himalayan glaciers
The Himalayas – called the “third Pole” because it’s the third largest perennial ice mass on the planet – is home to over 50,000 glaciers. But here too, glaciers are retreating, as the two stills from the GlacierWorks website show.

Incidentally, Himalayan glacier retreat was the subject of a controversy when the IPCC admitted that they had included in error a prediction that all the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by  2035 in their Fourth Assessment Report in 2007.

Ocean acidification
Excess CO2 in the atmosphere is changing the pH balance of the oceans. For the last 300m years, the pH of the oceans has been constant, but in recent years, they have become more acidic. A FAQ on ocean acidification explains that how acid a liquid is depends on the amount of Hydrogen ions there are in it. Here’s what happens when the increased CO2 comes in contact with seawater:

So when the acid breaks down, Hydrogen ions are released, increasing the acidity of the oceans. Some of these Hydrogen ions (positively charged particles of Hydrogen) are absorbed by carbonate ions. This absorption is called the carbonate buffer.

The use of carbonate ions to absorb Hydrogen ios has an knock-on effect on invertebrate sea creatures who make their shells and skeletons from calcium carbonate. For their shells and skeletons to remain solid, they need plenty of carbonate ions in the sea water, but those carbonate ions are increasingly being used up to absorb the Hydrogen ions.

The pH of the oceans is about 8.1; this has come down by 0.1 since the Industrial Revolution. If Co2 continues to be emitted at current rates, the pH could come down by 0.3 or 0.4, and the concern is that sea creatures will not be able to adapt quickly enough. Time and time again, we see climactic and other biological processes being unnaturally speeded up by climate forcing.

By the way, in their FAQs on ocean acidification, one FAQ is about what can be done about the problem, as well as the greater problem of climate change. This is the answer:

 

Election 2016: how the parties rate on environmental policies

Fine Gael

Fine Gael have an extensive section in their manifesto on climate change, energy and the environment. Much of it is based on a proposed Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Plan. This plan has not been produced yet, but the areas it will cover are set out in the recent Energy White Paper. Thus, Fine Gael’s manifesto contains many variants of “will introduce measures” without actually setting out what these measures might be.

For instance, on electricity generation (which is a major source of Ireland’s CO2 emissions), Fine Gael say they “will examine specific measures to reduce emissions in electricity generation, and will outline how new technologies can be ready for incorporation into Ireland’s electricity system and that the cost of existing renewable technologies can be lower.” (P27). This pledge to “examine” seems even weaker than other promises to “introduce”.

On agriculture and transport (the other two main emissions areas), the language is similarly vague. On transport, we will have a “cost-effective” plan to increase energy efficiency across all modes of transport, but the “impact of proposed measures on other national policy objectives” will be taken into account. In effect, this means that any measures taken towards lowering transport emissions will have to pass two tests first: how cost effective they are, and how they impact on other policies. The reduction of emissions is not a goal in itself. Oh, and electric vehicles will be encouraged.

On agriculture, Fine Gael, having said in the opening section that they fully support the Paris Agreement reached at COP21, now state that their Low Carbon Development Plan will “focus on balancing the need to control emissions with the economic and social objective of promoting the development of a sustainable rural economy.” (P30). Note “control” rather than “reduce” emissions. Again, lowering CO2 emissions from this sector is not an end in itself, but is dependent on other factors. Forestry is to be promoted, not least as “carbon sinks” to help the country reach its binding emissions targets for 2020 and 2030.

On energy, there is a promise to review planning regulations regarding wind turbines and a “technology neutral” price support for renewable energy. The Better Energy Scheme will be continued and energy efficiency in the public sector will be encouraged.

To sum up, Fine Gael seems to know what has to be done on reducing Ireland’s CO2 emissions and in transitioning to a post-carbon society. They don’t exactly have a plan, but they have a plan to have a plan.

Fianna Fáil

Despite Fianna Fáil’s very late-in-the-day announcement that they will set up a Department of Climate Change, it is very hard to find any policies regarding energy, transport, domestic energy use, the environment or climate change on the Fianna Fáil manifesto. On agriculture, the party seems fully behind plans to increase the national herd and to carry on as before. There is not acknowledgement that emissions from agriculture need to be tackled, or that emissions from other sectors need to be reduced to allow for an increase from this sector.

The manifesto concentrates on four key areas: jobs and business; social services; crime, and housing. It seems very focus group-driven, as it research had shown that these are the four areas people are concerned about, so these are the only areas we need policies about. An alternative approach would be to identify the main challenges facing the country, and provide policy solutions to them.

Oh, hold on. Under a section entitled “Improve the road network and protect public transport”, there are some environmental issues discussed. The party plans to set up a National Infrastructure Commission who will “decarbonize Ireland” (no indication as to how) and provide “a secure, balanced energy mix”.

The party will also encourage electric vehicles by waiving motor tax and motorway tolls and increasing charging points, which will be free. They will also provide €2m towards cycle greenways.

A search for “climate change” on the Fianna Fáil site shows that the last time the party had anything to say about the subject was on December 1, when Jim O’Callaghan called on the parties at COP21 to agree a binding deal.

Labour Party

It is also very difficult to find any mention of the environment or climate change in the Labour manifesto. Under the section on building a decent society, the party commits to setting up a “Green Infrastructure Fund” with a budget of €1bn. Half of this comes from the sale of the government’s stake in AIB, and the other €500m will come from private investment. The party acknowledges that “climate change is the biggest single challenge facing humanity” and “the greatest project facing humanity in the 21^st century”. (P10).

Regarding energy, Labour will focus on providing the structures for private investment rather than involving State agencies. (P50). They will “facilitate grid access for small-scale renewable energy projects” and make much of the introduction of Ireland’s first climate change legislation.

The party pledges to move Moneypoint from coal to renewables by 2025 and to have all our cities carbon neutral as part of an “ambitious 20-year plan” (P52).

The document shows awareness of the need to reduce emissions and move to a post-carbon society, but again is short on detail as to how to get there. There is much talk of “investment”, “accelerate” this and “promote” that, but very little of a specific nature. The Green Infrastructure Fund is very welcome, but it would be nice to know what sort of infrastructure is envisaged.

Sinn Féin

Sinn Féin’s manifesto is admirably brief and to-the-point in its environment section (P49). It also contains the most concrete measures and the least aspirational waffle. While what they have to say is concise, it is also very narrow. On energy, the only three policies they have are to allow turf-cutting for domestic heating, to ban fracking, and to regulate wind turbines.

The party will make sure community energy projects can access the national grid, allow photo-voltaic energy to be fed into the grid at the Feed-In Tariff. The party plans to invest in retro-fitting existing housing stock, and extending the Warmer Homes Scheme to include windows and doors. There is some vagueness when it comes to emissions-reduction and climate change: the party will “engage with climate change experts” on the best way to hit emissions targets.

On energy, the party will protect turf-cutting rights for families in the West of Ireland, noting that cutting turf to heat the family home “has been part of the Irish tradition and heritage for centuries”. (P55). They will introduce strict planning rules for wind turbines, including wetting out who will be “responsible for decommissioning wind turbines”.

On agriculture, their only concern is that TTIP may harm Irish farming. There is very little evidence of an understanding of what a post-COP21 society might look like. Indeed, while some of the support for community energy projects and micro-generation is welcome, the party seems more intent on decommissioning much of the renewable infrastructure that’s already there.

Social Democrats

The Social Democrats have an impressive suite of policies on climate change and clean energy in their manifesto (P46-48). The party shows a keen awareness of what needs to be done to address the challenges posed by Ireland’s emissions targets.

The party plans to introduce a special tariff for off-shore wind, but this seems to be at the expense of on-shore wind; they are proposing stricter planning regulations here, with more local involvement. The plan to legislate for the Arhaus Convention, granting citizens access to information and justice on environmental matters.

The Social Democrats plan to phase out subsidies for carbon-based fuels and eliminate coal and peat-burning plants. There is also a comprehensive energy retrofit programme and, on climate change, there will be specific sectoral targets for emissions reduction. The party is opposed to TTIP.

Green Party

The Greens emphasise a long term strategy and, as you might expect, have comprehensive policies on climate change, environmental protection, green energy, transport and agriculture. They show a deep awareness of managing a post-carbon society.

There are extensive policies on walking, cycling, motor transport and roads (P16). On energy, the Greens pledge to close Moneypoint and the three peat-burning plants within the lifetime of the next government. They plan a smart grid to allow householders sell their electricity back to the grid.

On climate change, the party proposes fast de-carbonisation of the economy and binding sectoral targets. There would be a new clause in the Constitution giving rights to the environment, and a new crime of “ecocide” would be created.

Their agriculture policy does not specifically address emissions from this sector. They propose that 5pc of land be given over to organic production by 2021. On home energy, the party states: “We will support the introduction of a Dutch Energiesprong deep retrofit  energy efficiency scheme in Ireland. We will seek European Investment Bank funding support for such an initiative with repayments on social housing coming from future fuel allowance payments.” (P22).

People Before Profit/Anti-Austerity Alliance

PBP have a very short section in their manifesto on environmental matters. The aims are praiseworthy, but largely meaningless without specifics as to how they will be achieved. Their eight points comprise: investment in public transport; retrofitted buildings to comply with energy efficiency regulation; investment in renewable energies and divestment in fossil fuels; banning fracking; retaining forestry in public ownership; increasing the afforestation of the country; cultivation of native hard-wood trees, and developing local community involvement in the development of Irish forestry.

In their “land use” section (P14) they speak about a home insulation programme, an urban allotments scheme and various healthy eating programmes. There is an almost retro feel to many of these policies – they seem taken straight from the 1980s.

Ireland’s White Paper on Energy: an analysis

Ordinary householders may not give much thought to the government’s energy strategy, or to the global problem of climate change. Yet these two issues are inextricably linked and will affect how much people pay for fuel and what energy-saving measures they will be expected to take around their homes.

Energy and climate change are linked because energy-production (everything from power stations to domestic heating systems) accounts for a large proportion of Ireland’s emissions of CO₂. And the government is committed to reducing our CO₂ as part of an international effort to combat climate change.

Ireland’s energy policy was set out in December 2015 in a document called Ireland’s Transition to a Low Carbon Energy Future 2015-2030. This was the long-awaited White Paper on energy policy published by Minister Alex White and his Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. The document is available here.

A government’s energy policy has far-reaching effects. The growing industry around the generation of electricity from renewable sources, for instance, wants to know what tariff regime they will be dealing with. Companies who work in energy-saving technologies – insulation, glazing, retrofitting for example – want to know what grant regimes will be put in place to encourage retrofitting.

More generally, the public wants to know what Ireland’s “energy mix” will be. Where will our energy come from? How much will be generated from old coal and peat-burning stations? How much will be from natural gas? Will nuclear power be in the mix? Will wind power be encouraged or restricted?

In the world of policy formation, a Green Paper usually sets out the options available to government. It sets out the context and the range of possibilities from which the government can choose. A White Paper usually builds from the Green Paper and sets out what measures a government intends to implement.

However, Ireland’s Transition to a Low Carbon Energy Future 2015-2030 does not include any policy decisions. It concentrates on setting out general aims and outlining the general energy governance and policy environment. As Frank McDonald pointed out in the Irish Times, it is actually more a Green than a White Paper.

Minister White’s document must also be read in the context of Ireland’s commitments under various treaties and agreements to reduce carbon emissions. The first of these is set out in the EU 2020 emissions reduction targets; Ireland must reduce its carbon emissions to 20pc of 2005 levels by 2020. Already, it has been conceded that Ireland will fail to hit this target. (Press eport here and Environmental Protection Agency report here.)

Furthermore, the EU is looking at further binding emissions targets of 40pc (below 2005 levels) by 2030, although Ireland is seeking exemptions from these targets on the basis of its dependence on agriculture, which is in itself a major cause of greenhouse gas emissions.

Lastly, in December 2015, Ireland, as part of the EU bloc, signed the Paris Agreement. This commits Ireland to the long-term goal of keeping global warming to below 2⁰C and to aim for a limit of 1.5⁰. During the negotiations in Paris, the EU put forward their commitment to a 40pc reduction of emissions by 2030 and agreed that emissions would “peak as soon as possible.” (The EU’s role at COP 21 described here.)

So it’s evident that Ireland will come under increasing pressure to reduce its emissions of so-called Greenhouse Gases (GHGs) in the immediate future. This has implications for the energy, housing, transport and agriculture sectors. This is a graph of Ireland’s emissions by sector (source: EPA):

 

This is the context in which Minister White must position his White Paper. So what does it have to say about Ireland’s plans to reduce emissions, encourage homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient, and to move Ireland to a less carbon-dependent energy supply?

The document contains 90 “actions” – most of them committing Ireland to making decisions on actions – before 2020. Friends of the Earth Ireland remarked that these actions “don’t match the scale of the ambition or the urgency of the challenge”.

It is set forth in very aspirational language. For instance, it is hoped that communities would become “agents of change” in the energy sector, and the text notes that energy-saving measures can deliver substantial savings (of both cash and CO₂. (Although it goes on to say that “this will demand more extensive measures than have generally been implemented so far, including deep retrofit of existing building stocks”.)

Controversial or politically sensitive decisions – such as the closure of the coal-fired power plant at Moneypoint, or the peat-fired ones in West Offaly and Lough Ree – are kicked to touch. A decision on fracking is also postponed, as is any decision on whether the government will move towards – or away from – wind-power. All it has to say about nuclear power is that it is “currently prohibited by legislation”.

And, as for the possibility of introducing a grant system for homeowners to make their houses more energy efficient, or perhaps grant-aiding domestic micro power-generation (photovoltaic cells or domestic-scale windmills), or improving the energy-efficiency of domestic glass, or even introducing a smart grid so that homeowners who do generate electricity can sell it back to the grid, is has only this to say:

 “Ultimately, it will be decisions by individuals that will make homes warmer, businesses more competitive and public services more cost-efficient.”

As many Environmental Non-Governmental Organisations (ENGOs) have pointed out, this seems like an abrogation of duty, as if the government is throwing up its hands and saying: We can’t do anything. It’s all up to you.”

A layman’s guide to COP21

The COP plenary hall at Le Bourget, Paris.