Ireland Becomes Second Country to Declare Climate Emergency

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.
EcoWatch

Rowan Kelly from Bray with other members of Climate Strike Fridays for Future, spending the 13th consecutive Friday protesting about Climate Change outside the Dáil. The exemplary tenacity of these young people offers hope that something will be finally done by the establishment politicos. Photograph: Alan Betson / The Irish Times

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Republic of Ireland became the second country in the world to declare a climate emergency Thursday, The Independent Ireland reported. The declaration was passed Thursday evening when both the government and opposition parties agreed to an amendment to a climate action report.

"We're reaching a tipping point in respect of climate deterioration," Climate Action Minister Richard Bruton said. "Things will deteriorate very rapidly unless we move very swiftly and the window of opportunity to do that is fast closing."

The Irish declaration follows a similar action from UK's parliament May 1. The governments of Wales and Scotland have also declared climate emergencies.

Irish Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan pointed out that the declaration needed to be a starting point.

"Declaring an emergency means absolutely nothing unless there is action to back it up,' he said, as BBC News reported. "That means the Government having to do things they don't want to do."

Climate Action Committee Chair Hildegarde Naughton said that Bruton would bring new climate action proposals before the Dáil, as the Irish parliament is called, and that she looked forward to working with her colleagues to assess them.

"Now we need action," she said, as BBC News reported.

Bruton praised the efforts of young people around the world who have protested for greater action on climate change for giving the debate more urgency.

"It is justified that a level of urgency be injected into this debate," he said, as The Independent Ireland reported.

Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist who has been credited with inspiring the youth climate movement, in turn tweeted her support for Ireland's decision.

"Great news from Ireland!!" she tweeted. "Who is next? And remember: #ClimateEmergency means leaving fossil fuels in the ground."

 

The Dáil will have a chance to follow Thunberg's advice next month, when it will have a chance to support a Climate Emergency Measures Bill put forward by Solidarity/People Before Profit Deputy Bríd Smith, which seeks to limit oil and gas exploration. Smith said she was "delighted" with the emergency declaration, but that it would be "interesting to see" if the government would take it further by supporting her bill, RTÉ reported.

The Oireachtas Climate Action report that spurred the declaration came from a Citizens' Assembly report; another Citizens' Assembly will consider the issue of a biodiversity emergency, RTÉ explained.

Fianna Fail's climate action spokesman Timmy Dooley, who moved the amendment to declare an emergency, said that if the government followed the recommendations in the climate action report it would "bring an end to our laggardly response to climate change," The Independent Ireland reported

 

APPENDIX

‘Emperor is naked’

From left Caoimhe Cotter, Saoi O’Connor and Darragh Cotter outside Cork City Council Photo (c) Shamim Malekmian

Saoi O’Connor (16) from Skibbereen Community College has led weekly protests outside Cork City Hall since early January. In response to those who accused her of mitching off school, she tweeted: “City hall is a two-hour bus ride from my house, I get up three hours earlier than I usually would for school to get into the city for 9am. I sit outside City Hall for 7hrs, sometimes with others, sometimes alone.”

She told the Evening Echo: “I prioritise this, because if we don’t fix global climate change, there is no point in us going to school. Greta Thunberg says there is no point in us learning off facts if our governments are ignoring those facts. It’s stupid. There’s a very distinct cognitive dissonance there.”

O’Connor envisages, given the scale of climate action needed, she will be protesting every Friday for the foreseeable future.

Thunberg is deeply appreciative of such solidarity. “There has been a number of real heroes on school strike, for instance in Scotland and Ireland, for some time now…and the ones in Cork with the epic sign saying ‘the emperor is naked’,” she told the Guardian.

Environmentalist Bill McKibben has hailed Thunberg’s role, which is widely regarded as helping to defuse pessimism around climate change. “The movement that Greta launched is one of the most hopeful things in my 30 years of working on the climate question.”

SOURCE: ecowatch

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