COMMENT:After a year that has seen the environment become the dominant driver of policies, climate change is no longer an issue - it is the issue, writes Mary Kelly
THE LANGUAGE of the environment often informs the cliches we use to describe major events in history. We reach high water marks and experience sea changes. Then the winds of change start to blow and we find ourselves at a watershed.
Last year will be seen as the year where the environment itself, rather than just its language, became the stuff of history - the driver of policies and changes that map out how this country and the world will be shaped for the next half a century at least.
Last week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) published its Highlights report for 2007, which provides a summary of the EPA's main activities during 2007. While the EPA has a broad remit that is reflected in the report, I want to focus on the most significant issue of 2007 - climate change.
The reports of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the awarding of the Nobel Prize jointly to the panel and former US vice-president and eco-campaigner Al Gore, and the publication in Britain of the Stern report all contributed in 2007 to a much heightened awareness of the fact that we are now living in a world that is experiencing climate change and that the time for action is short if we are to avoid the potentially calamitous effects that climate change might bring about.
At the first of the recent series of public lectures on climate change being run by the EPA, Dr Martin Manning, one of the co-ordinators of the recent IPCC assessment of the science of climate change, made it clear that the science is unequivocal: we are now experiencing climate change and have been for at least a decade.
During 2007, the EPA published a number of research reports on the implications of climate change in Ireland and we are now getting a much clearer picture of the likely consequences of climate change for Ireland and the challenge we face. This challenge is two-fold; how do we cut greenhouse gas emissions, and how do we protect ourselves against the inevitable consequences of climate change?
While the climate impacts for Ireland are unlikely to be catastrophic in the medium term if effective actions are taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the consequences of climate change, if unchecked, for more vulnerable countries are likely to be devastating. They include massive flooding of populated areas, droughts, crop failures, and increased diseases and desertification.
All sectors of the economy in Ireland must now identify where carbon emissions can be reduced and start implementing changes that will result in incremental reductions in carbon emissions and start moving Ireland towards a low-carbon future. There is no time for complacency.
I am particularly concerned about the transport sector as our figures are showing a very significant upward trend that is counterbalancing modest reductions in other sectors.
At the very least, the transport sector needs to work out quickly how carbon emissions can be stabilised to avoid any additional increases.
This is not going to be easy and the transport sector cannot achieve results on its own.
Ireland has experienced unprecedented population growth in the last 10 years in parallel with increased purchasing power and this has led to a large increase in car ownership.
Many of our citizens also now have to go to work by travelling long distances by car, and reversing this trend is going to take both commitment and time, particularly in the absence of reliable public transport alternatives in many locations around the country. But with the total share of carbon emissions from transport at about 20 per cent and growing, some radical thinking will be needed for this sector.
We are very dependent on fossil fuels for energy and our medium to long-term ambition must be to reduce our dependence. The Government has set targets for significant increases in renewable energy and this is very welcome - but weaning our economy off fossil fuels is going to be a very difficult task.
Overall, agriculture is still the biggest sectoral contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, at 28 per cent. Achieving significant reductions without significant reductions in animal numbers will be difficult and this sector needs to be considered in both a European and global context.
The challenges facing the agricultural sector show clearly that there are few easy answers when dealing with the challenge of climate change. There is of course significant potential for growing energy crops in Ireland but it is important that energy and food security be considered in tandem and not in isolation of one another when tackling climate change.
Similar challenges exist in the residential, industrial and commercial and waste sectors. The EPA welcomes recent initiatives such as the improvement in energy efficiency standards and the introduction of standards for domestic lighting, both of which should result in a reduction in emissions from the residential sector.
The emissions trading scheme, which is administered by the EPA, will result in overall emission reductions in time from the 100 or so installations covered by the scheme. The Governments target of a 3 per cent cut in carbon emissions per annum is also very welcome and will focus minds on the challenges.
We must also start to plan for climate changes that are now likely to happen even if we manage large-scale reductions in carbon emissions.
We appear to be moving to a situation where the existing regional variations between the west and the east of the country will become accentuated with more rainfall in the west and less in the east. Coupled with potential rises in sea level and more frequent occurrences of what we now consider to be weather extremes, water and coastal management are going to be big issues for the future. This means that planning authorities need to bring climate change centre stage when preparing development plans
Effects can be expected not only on flooding, but on water supply and water management, as well as on crops, flora and fauna (including birds, insects and fish stocks) and waterborne diseases.
Reliable information and good-quality research will also be vital when it comes to drawing up these plans.
The EPA lecture series on climate change is drawing to a close. Lectures provide a unique opportunity for people to hear first-hand from international experts.
There was a high level of interest in the lectures and details of the remaining three are available on our website, www.epa.ie. We are also making arrangements for the lectures to be placed on the site so everyone can study them.
Mary Kelly is director general of the Environmental Protection Agency