Sinn Féin Senator Lynn Boylan and TD Darren O’Rourke today reacted to the IPCC’s latest report outlining the drastic impact climate change is already having and highlighting how it will severely worsen if action is not taken now.

Senator Lynn Boylan, Sinn Féin spokesperson on Climate Justice said;

“The IPCC report is a stark reminder not only of the dire impact of climate change on biodiversity, but also the potentially negative impact of our efforts to solve climate change too.

“In Ireland, we’ve had too many of what the IPCC calls ‘maladaptive actions’, from Amazon’s wind farm leading to a bog slide, to Bord na Móna attempting to build on the site of the Mid-Shannon Wilderness Park.

“We need to get the balance between climate action and biodiversity right and to do that means adequately resourcing the planning process so bad plans are weeded out. We cannot allow biodiversity to be the sacrificial lamb on the altar of emissions reductions.

“As a wealthy country, Ireland has a key role to play in ensuring additional funds for climate finance for the poorest regions to adapt.

“While the poorest have contributed the least globally, the same is true on the national scale. In Ireland, the top 10% of Irish earners emit nearly as much as the bottom 50%.

“The IPCC report is clear that structural barriers are blocking people from taking the right action. The state must play a leading role in changing systems and helping individuals to take the action required.”

Sinn Féin spokesperson on Climate, Communications and Transport, Darren O’Rourke TD said;

“The blueprint for the decarbonisation of many areas is already there – switch to walking, cycling, public transport and EVs, renewable energy supplies, afforestation and improved energy efficiency, for example – but the window is rapidly closing. The IPCC report shows we need far greater urgency.

“Tweaking policies and sending out market signals isn’t going to deliver the radical and immediate changes required.

“It will take coherent policies and supports from governments and wholesale change in behaviours to achieve the necessary emissions reductions.

“In Ireland, the Climate Change Advisory Council have highlighted an ‘implementation deficit’. With the EPA already predicting a failure to reduce emissions in 2022 – the second year into the first five-year carbon budget – it’s clear the government’s incremental tax, nudge and market tweaking approach isn’t working.”