With flooding back in the news today, I thought I’d take the opportunity to mention that my colleague and co-author Swenja Surminski from LSE will be giving evidence tomorrow morning (Thursday) at the Oireachtas Finance Committee hearings on the Flood Insurance Bill. Details of the session are here. You should be able to watch proceedings online here. The Flood Insurance Bill can be viewed here.
Category: Climate change
[Post co-authored by Paul Kilgarriff and Tom McDermott]
This time last year Ireland was in the middle of its wettest winter on record [PDF]. A series of Atlantic Storms battered the country, beginning with Storm Desmond in early December, followed by Eva and Frank. Rainfall levels in some areas were up to 300% of normal levels. Extensive flooding around the country caused widespread damage – hundreds of homes and businesses were flooded, and thousands more were cut off by flood waters. In many places the floods did not recede until well into the new year.
Various impacts of the flooding are detailed in the recent report by the National Directorate for Fire and Emergency Management (NDFEM)[PDF]. Almost €1.8million in humanitarian assistance was paid out to affected households; close to €1m to farmers; local authorities received special funding of €18m for clean-up costs; while damage to the road network was estimated at over €100m. Aside from damages, the flooding also caused substantial disruptions to everyday life — 350,000 customers suffered disruptions to electricity supply, and 23,000 households were placed on boil water notices. The flooding also resulted in substantial travel disruptions – in particular as a result of flooding on the road network.
Here’s a guest post on the very important potential fiscal costs of climate mitigation by the IIEA’s Joseph Curtin.
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The basic imperative to reduce emissions is easily understood. From March 2015 to July 2016, in each successive month the previous highest global temperature for that month was broken. July 2016 was the warmest of any month on record in the period of historic measurement. Given this record goes back roughly 160 years, the odds of this occurring without man’s input in the form of greenhouse gas emissions is infinitesimally small.
Reducing emissions is a political challenge that is difficult to grapple with, in Ireland as in many other countries. In welcome developments, we now have a Government Department with “Climate Action” in its title, and the newly established citizens’ assembly was given the goal of exploring “how the State can make Ireland a leader in tackling climate change”.
But on the ground there are few examples of “action” and “leadership” to draw upon. There has been no plan to reduce emissions since the previous strategy expired 4 years ago. As we can see from the EPA’s latest inventory report, since the end of the recession in 2011 Irish emissions have more or less flat lined. In fact emissions will probably increased in 2015 (although EPA data have not yet been published) and are projected to continue increasing in the years ahead.
The 32nd Dáil has already thrown up some, eh, interesting views on climate change , which I previously responded to here. The new Dáil also sees the return of the Green Party, with two TDs elected.
With the formation of the new government on Friday we now have a Department for “Communications, Climate Change and Natural Resources“. Denis Naughten, independent TD for Roscommon-Galway, has been appointed as Minister.
On the one hand, having a government department with climate change in the title seems like progress.