Good COP, bad COP

Globe hanging from the ceiling at COP26 in Glasgow

 It is three weeks since I boarded the ‘Rail to the CoP’ train in Brussels, and a week since I came back from Glasgow via London and a Eurostar to Brussels. For me, the optimism that I felt stepping off a train in Glasgow and seeing Greta Thunberg and her supporters has been replaced with that familiar feeling that progress is slow, and rarely moves at the pace required. On that first weekend I watched Patti Smith sing “The people have the power” from a Glasgow stage, but the reality is that Governments and Institutions have the real power, and rarely change direction in a hurry, even when it is badly needed. Former President Mary Robinson's emotional plea summed up how so many of us felt. 

My last memories of COP26 were on Saturday afternoon as I sat at the back of the huge Plenary Hall. A ‘stocktaking’ was about to start. To my left I could see Frans Timmermans the European Commission Vice-President working the room with some of his senior advisors close to hand. He was listening to voices from all around the world from the smaller island states to powerful players like Russia. To his right was John Kerry, US president Biden’s climate envoy. He too was touring the room, ignoring cameras, and listening carefully to the disparate voices and concerns that filtered through to him. This was geo-politics in action played out on a global stage. To even get access to the Plenary room was an achievement. Thousands of activists and campaigners were not allowed beyond the security fences, and even those who were restricted to certain rooms and spaces. Meanwhile the corporate branding was everywhere. From the Team Britain Formula E electric racing car to the ticker tape displays reminded you that firms like NatWest, Microsoft, Unilever, and Scottish Power were Principal Partners for the event. I noticed that #TogetherForOurPlanet was the official hashtag, but the campaigners outside the fences might disagree.

I have been to four COPS at this stage. COP15 in Copenhagen back in 2009 had us holding our breath for a ‘Hopenhagen’ moment, but it was not to be as Obama and China’s Wen Jinbao failed to bring the ambition we needed to the table. A year later at COP16 in Cancún I was head of a small delegation from Ireland and the talks process was on life support, but it survived and COP17 in Durban gave a new lease of life to the process that culminated in the Paris agreement at COP21 in Paris in 2015. Would the postponed COP26 in Glasgow be different? Philip Boucher-Hayes put his finger on it when he said that France had put years into preparing for the Paris COP. There was not much sign of that with the UK Government. The acid test was in India’s last-minute watering down of the core text on pushing for replacement of the phase-out of coal with a reference to ‘phase-down’. As my MEP colleagues for whom English is not their mother tongue said to me, “Is that even a word in English?” I am not sure if it is.

I some respects Nicola Sturgeon was a more compelling figure that the UK’s COP26 President Alok Sharma MP who ended up apologising for the watered-down text. Even though her stance on oil and gas is poor, she managed to convey the sense of urgency that is needed on the climate crisis. Speaking in Glasgow, a city which prospered on coal and steel, she knows that Scotland’s future prosperity will be built on wind and solar. She also understands that this change must be accelerated, not postponed. 

On the substance of the COP26 texts, Fossil Fuels, Loss and Damage, and Article 6 were the crunch issues. 

On fossil fuels, unabated coal, and inefficient subsidies for fossil fuels were at the heart of the debate. Although the end of the oil gas and coal age was signaled, the can continues to be kicked down the road, but the final text while clunky did indicate that fossil fuels days are numbered. It stated: “Accelerating efforts towards the phasedown of unabated coal power and phase-out of inefficient fossil fuel subsidies, while providing targeted support to the poorest and most vulnerable.”

'Loss and Damage' featured in discussions, but it was clear that the US did not want to come to a decision on this and open a Pandora’s Box of historical blame. The word reparations came up in the corridors, and in news commentary, but it will be hugely challenging to make the Western World face up to their obligations to compensate the Developing World for damage caused by a problem that was not of their making.

The Article 6 mechanisms, set out the functioning of international carbon markets to support further global cooperation on emission reductions. A lot of work was completed in Glasgow to clear up the accounting rules for carbon credits before and after the Paris Agreement and some loopholes that allowed double accounting were closed. The elephant in the room: the give-away of free carbon credits to the largest polluters was not up for discussion.

I was pleased that references to ‘Mother Earth’ and ‘Climate Justice’ made it into the Glasgow Agreement, and here’s the text on this: “Noting the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including in forests, the ocean and the cryosphere, and the protection of biodiversity, recognized by some cultures as Mother Earth, and also noting the importance for some of the concept of ‘climate justice’, when taking action to address climate change”

From a personal perspective it was great to meet civil society representatives from countries such as Bangladesh. It was also good to to catch up with Green colleagues such as Elizabeth May who became a Canadian MP shortly after I met her in Copenhagen in 2009. I also met Ross Greer MSP, another green who has been a strongly-opinioned member of the Scottish Parliament since 2016. I was also proud of the work of Green Ministers such as our own Eamon Ryan who chaired some of the negotiations over the last week. He had a great team assisting him in Glasgow, and strong support from our Civil Service.It was good too to catch up with my colleagues from the Dáil; Brian Leddin TD and Minister Malcolm Noonan.

However, these fruitful meetings were over-shadowed by conservative politicians who made so many weak and strung-out promises: for instance President Bolsonaro of Brazil said he will halt deforestation by 2030. This is too little, too late. The 2020s need to be the decade of transformative change, and the heavy lifting must be achieved in the next few years. Sometimes you didn't know whether to laugh or cry at the slow progress. Tuvalu is a low-lying island state and their stand at COP feature a group of polar bears wearing life-jackets and a penguin with a noose around it's neck, not a bad depiction of the climate crisis.

The Glasgow COP signaled that the world’s economies will shift towards a cleaner future, but it did not provide the urgency or the money that is needed. It also exposed the deep divisions between those in the room, and those excluded from process. When the COP caravan moves on to Egypt next year, these cracks may become larger and the divisions more pronounced between wealthy and poorer countries.

European Parliament update, six months on...

Well, that was quick.

Just over six months into my mandate as a Member of the European Parliament for Dublin, and it has been busy!

I called it the “Climate Change Election” when I launched my campaign last April, and thankfully there’s been some progress on this at the European level.  The headline item has been the announcement of a European Green Deal. First announced by Ursula von der Leyen the new European Commission President early in her mandate, she fleshed this out in more detail in early December, and we’ll see more details emerge by early March, This will fulfil her promise to launch an ambitious programme within one hundred days of taking office. Radical changes are needed in energy, transport, buildings and agriculture to deliver on this. We'll know more in the Spring of 2020 about the level of ambition from the new Commission and Parliament.

For me it has been a steep learning curve. Firstly, the balance of powers between the different European Union institutions have become clearer to me. The European Parliament is an amending legislature. We can’t initiate new laws, but we can modify proposals that come from the European Commission, composed of twenty-seven European Commissioners, including Ireland’s own Phil Hogan who now looks after trade issues, having previously had responsibility for agriculture. Apart from von der Layen it will be interesting to watch two senior Commissioners: Margrethe Vestager from Denmark who leads on digital issues, and Frans Timmermans a former Foreign Affairs Minister of the Netherlands who will look after the implementation of the Green Deal. I sit on the TRAN Committee (short for transport) as well as ITRE (which has responsibility for industry, telecoms, research and energy). I also keep a watching brief on REGI (which deals with urban and regional affairs). All three committees have key roles to play in tackling greenhouse gas emissions.

Remember that the European Union doesn’t and can’t tackle everything: under the principal of ‘subsidiarity’ it can only address issues that the Member States have decided should be dealt with at European level. That means we can’t tackle housing issues, but I can put pressure on the European Investment Bank and other bodies to ramp up their focus on these issues. When it comes to tackling climate change the EU does have an important role: it sets targets and provides support to countries to ensure that they are achieved. For instance the European Performance of Buildings Directive ensures that new buildings have to meet an A energy rating, and there will be more work on this front in the years ahead. I want to try and ensure that local authority homes are retro-fitted with insulation, draught-proofing and new heating systems, to ensure that fuel poverty is tackled, and cold damp homes are a thing of the past.

The Irish Green Party is part of the Greens/European Free Alliance group within the Parliament. We comprise seventy-four members, or almost 10% of the 751 seat Parliament, and we have a pretty good track record in making substantive and considered amendments to proposed laws. Last week I participated in the Transport Committee and we burnt the midnight oil to improve the working conditions and driving times of lorry drivers. A lot of drafting was put into improving road safety and worker’s rights to ensure that drivers get proper breaks and don’t sleep in their cabs for weeks on end. We eventually finished our work at 6:45am. Talk about a baptism of fire! Of course, any changes we make must be signed off by the relevant Transport Ministers from every country in the European Union, and it remains to be seen whether our Minister Shane Ross TD will give these changes the green light.

The European Parliament sits in Brussels in Belgium most weeks, and then in Strasbourg in France one week in four. It is a crazy set-up, involving huge amounts of travel. The French refuse to give up on Strasbourg, so we all hop onto a charter train once a month to head down to Eastern France where the hoteliers rub their hands at the prospect of hundreds of MEPs and their staff arriving for four days. Back in Brussels, I’ve rented an apartment about fifteen minutes by bike away from the Parliament in an area called St.Gilles: it is the Brussels equivalent of Stoneybatter. Rents are cheaper than Dublin, and there’s much more protection for tenants enshrined in law.

I’m trying not to fly over and back every week, and around one trip in four I take the ferry to Holyhead from Dublin Port. From there I take a four-hour long train-ride to London Euston. Then I walk ten minutes down the Euston Road to St. Pancras, and hop on a Eurostar for a two-hour ride to Brussels Midi. This takes about twelve hours from door-to-door. One issue I’m working on in Brussels is to try and ensure rail times are better scheduled and speeds improved. In addition, we need to ensure that air travel pays its fair share of taxes, compared to rail journeys.

Over the last six months we’ve seen the UK head closer to Brexit, now inevitable with the Conservatives winning last week’s election. We’ll lose our UK colleagues, but I suspect there will be renewed efforts by Scottish nationalists to secede from the UK and rejoin the EU. Brexit brings a united Ireland closer. A useful exercise would be to examine how policies in health, education and policing could be coordinated north and south of the border, and how best to address the very real concerns from northern Unionists about being isolated. Hopefully, the Northern Ireland Assembly will reconvene early in the new year.

It has been a roller-coaster of a year. It has been amazing to see so many greens elected around Ireland and Europe, and brilliant to see Joe O’Brien elected as a TD in Dublin Fingal in the recent by-elections. It is great to have my colleague Grace O’Sullivan MEP for Ireland South as a sounding board for ideas and plans. A real personal success for me was to give my first speech as Gaeilge in the Parliament. I couldn’t have done it with fantastic support from my team in Brussels and Dublin. As we head towards 2020 which will bring a General Election in Ireland, I’ll be working on progressing laws to make the Green Deal a reality in Europe; to tackle climate change and bring about a just transition at home, and in Europe. We'll be working closely with our Green councillors hard at work in Councils all over Ireland, and with our TDs Eamon Ryan, Catherine Martin and Joe O'Brien in the Dáil, as well as Pippa Hackett in the Seanad, and Clare Bailey  and Rachel Woods, Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) in Northern Ireland. 

Nollaig Shona Daoibh!      

This is the Climate Change Election

Cuffe for Dublin European Election Campaign Launch, Dublin Woollen Mills, 15th April 2019

Friends, colleagues, welcome to the Dublin Woollen Mills. Welcome to the North Inner City, the electoral ward that is home to three European Parliament candidates for the Dublin constituency. There’s clearly something in the air! Welcome to Bas Eickhout, my European Green colleague from the Netherlands. It is an honour to have him here as a co-author of Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports. Bas has represented the European Parliament at UN climate change conferences, and has had the ear of Al Gore. He knows his stuff, thanks Bas.

CLIMATE CHANGE

This is the Climate Change election. We’ve been saying this for a while, but this time it’s getting traction. The language we use has changed. ‘Global warming’ doesn’t capture the nature of the crisis. ‘Climate Change’ suggests that it’s not just about warming. ‘Climate Justice’ reminds us that those who didn’t cause the problem shouldn’t have to pay the price. ‘Climate Breakdown’ suggest that it may be too late, and that we must act immediately.

Last Saturday would have been the eightieth birthday of the late Seamus Heaney. In his poem ‘Höfn’ he described the impact of climate change. “The glaciers have begun to melt. What will we do when the ice makes its move?” That’s a question that must be asked of anyone seeking public office in 2019. What will you do? Will you spend more money on new motorways or will you invest in public transport? Will you invest in low-energy homes and tackle fuel poverty, or will you leave it to the market to provide? Will you take decisive action to tackle rising emissions, or will you propose that we put up more bird-boxes? I’ve served as Minister of State for climate change and I know what needs to be done to tackle these issues.

Acting on climate cannot be done in isolation. It requires joined up thinking at local, and national level, and on the international stage. Here in Dublin as a city councillor I chaired a climate change committee that has produced a Climate Plan for Dublin. That Plan won’t be delivered unless the Government acts. We’ve also learned that the Irish Government won’t act unless it is under pressure from Europe. It has been like that since we joined the European Economic Community back in 1973. The Union is not perfect, but the extraordinary social and environmental progress that we’ve seen over the last 46 years here in Ireland would simply not have happened without our membership. Show me any other part of the world where there’s 28 democracies side-by-side. It is important that we renew the promise of Europe. Today’s big issues don’t recognise national boundaries, and collective action is needed at a regional levl. As we’ve learned from the Brexit debate, we need Europe to protect smaller countries, and resist the rise of far-right nationalism and populism.

LOOKING TO EUROPE

This is the Climate Action election. It’s an election where we can look to Europe for solutions from cities that work. As an MEP I’ll act as a bridge to show Dublin what works in other places and what can help us with a just transition here. All over the continent cities are finding solutions to tackle emissions that improve quality of life. I want Dublin to be known for its walkability, bikeability and liveability. Let’s look to Germany for child-friendly cities; let’s look to Austria for quality housing; let’s look to the Netherlands for sustainable transport and travel. All over Europe there are solutions that can work here.

ENERGY

The European Parliament can do more on energy. As Dublin’s MEP I want to legislate for a Just Transition. It’s not going to be easy. In the energy sector we’re going to need a European supergrid to get electricity to where it’s needed. We’re going to need community micro-grids that will allow communities to produce and sell energy at a local level. We’re going to need regulations that reinforces our national energy systems, and allows households to sell their surplus energy into the network. This needs to happen, and with more Green MEPs we can make this a reality.

TRANSPORT

Don’t kid yourself that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have climate change sorted. They haven’t show the will to do this. A lack of joined-up thinking will cost us dearly unless we act now. You can’t keep building motorways and expect emissions to fall. You can’t price people out of housing in Dublin and leave them with a three-hour daily commute. And don’t kid yourself that electric self-driving cars will set us free. The European Commission, the European Parliament need to know that Trans-European Networks and technologies are not the only answer. We need to invest in walking, cycling and public transport. Sure, we need some big projects, but we need small local changes too. That’s why I proposed that we add one second to pedestrian crossing times in Dublin and I’m glad to say that this is happening. It may not change the world, but it might mean your parents will take a trip to town, knowing that it is a bit easier to get across the road in the time available.

We need new transport infrastructure in Dublin, but we also need the simple stuff. Why is it that we’ve less buses on our streets than we did ten years ago? It’s not good enough to tell people to take the bus or train if they’re going to be squished in like sardines. It’s also not good enough to tell people to take the bus when driving is cheaper and faster. I’m pleased that we offer free travel to those over 65 but let’s start as we intend to finish, let’s make public transport free for children as well as pensioners. Start as you intend to finish. So let’s get the right travel patterns in place at an early age. If other countries in the European Union can’t do this why can’t we? Let’s get Europe to approve a transport package that spends more on active travel than it does on motorways. That means in Dublin taking cars out of Dame Street, Capel Street and George’s Street and creating a living city with cleaner air and more space for people.

HOUSING

This is the Just Transition election, and the European Parliament can do more on housing. Sure, it isn’t currently a European competence, but it should be. Globalisation has priced far too many out of the housing market here in Dublin. There’s too much 1% money sloshing round the globe and disrupting markets wherever it lands. It is clean money, it is dirty money, but it is disrupting and distorting our housing supply. Combined with Fine Gael’s belief that the market will solve this it means that we have 17,000 applicants on our housing waiting list in Dublin City alone, and thousands of families living in hostels, hotels and homeless hubs. We had 1,400 hostel beds ten years ago, we have 1,000 more today, and we still have dozens of homeless people who can’t find a bed. If Eoghan Murphy thinks he’d doing the right thing I’m happy to bring up to the Phoenix Park and show him people living in tents. I’ll bring him to Jervis Street, to the Croppies’ Acre. In my thirty years of living in Dublin’s inner city I have never seen a homelessness crisis of this magnitude.

Europe must help with our Housing Crisis. DG Regio has taken a strong interest in urban and regional affairs in recent years and I’ve carefully watched where this is heading. An EU urban agenda can deliver sustainable cities and a low-carbon trajectory, but to do this we need the numbers in the Parliament to put pressurise on the Commission and Council. We need a Housing package from Europe that will help us build A-rated new homes and retrofit the homes we have to modern standards.

I’m glad that the Irish Government has finally followed the lead of cities in Spain and elsewhere and is drawing down funds from the European Investment Bank for housing, but it’s not happening at the scale required. Let’s look to Vienna where the City of Vienna hosted the “Housing for All” conference last December. Cost-Rental housing is the future, and despite the internal rows in Fine Gael between Senior and Junior Ministers we must make it happen in Dublin.

I’m glad that Dublin City Council has brought the Vienna Model to Dublin, literally in this case with an exhibition that has been to the Docklands and Ballymun and that will be in Richmond Barracks in Inchicore all this week. Quality public housing is needed with people on all incomes living under the same roof. It is time to end the housing policies of exclusion, and look instead to Europe and to Vienna for inspiration from a city that owns 220,000 homes, and where successful housing associations are supported to tackle the crisis. In Berlin the city sold off much of its housing and thousands are now protesting the growing financialisation of the private rental sector.

A Just Transition will provide the funding for Dublin City Council to take the 24,000 homes that we provide, and bring them from a D to an A energy rating so that our tenants aren’t trapped in fuel poverty. A Just Transition would provide quality homes for all, not just for short-stay tourists in AirBnBs and hotels, or the affluent in new student housing. A Just Transition would mandate the Land Development Agency to build on brownfield sites like Broadstone, and provide most of these homes as mixed-income public housing, rather than investment targets for vulture or cuckoo funds. 40% affordable is far too low a bar for these sites.

WIDER WORLD

The Irish Naval Service has carried out extraordinary work in humanitarian rescues in the Mediterranean. But this migration crisis is part of a wider global trend, and we cannot retreat from commitments to the Global South. Irish Aid must continue to align our commitments to the Sustainable Development Goals. We must gender-proof our aid to ensure that women and girls are protected. Let’s look to the pioneering work of Mary Robinson in seeking climate justice for the least-well-off who will suffer most in a world of climate breakdown.

Let’s ensure that those who come to Ireland seeking refugee status aren’t left living in the shameful direct provision system. Cases should not drag on for years and if that means simplifying and strengthening EU or Irish Law then let’s deliver on this. Let’s ensure we accept our fair share of those fleeing persecution, and ensure that integration is at the heart of our policies.

Let’s also ensure that the EU’s foreign policy is geared towards sustainable development, rather than a European Army. Let’s ensure our defence forces have the equipment they need to deliver on humanitarian aid and peacekeeping. Let’s ensure they’re not paid low wages compared to other sectors of the economy. However, let’s not be sucked into defence spending under pressure from other member States that destroys our commitments to Irish Neutrality.

Let’s ensure that our close links to the UK continue regardless of the outcomes on Brexit. Those economic ties and cultural ties are crucial to our future. Now is the time to ensure that student exchanges such as Erasmus are kept in place to provide opportunities to study in the UK and for those across the water to study here. We need these commitments because they are part of the spirit of Europe regardless of the decisions made in Westminster.

DIGITAL FUTURES

Our digital world, just like climate change, does not recognise national borders. As our digital world expands we need to ensure that large companies do not have undue influence, I stand with Senator Elizabeth Warren from the United States when she says that monopolies should be broken up. It is wrong that three companies: Facebook, Amazon and Amazon dominate so much of the digital landscape. They have become virtual monopolies in their sector. We know that WeChat controls communications in China, we cannot let this happen in Europe.

The digital economy had given many benefits, but we need greater transparency on costs and profits, and a more level playing field for the major global companies in today’s global world. The rules of the game must reflect the subsidies and tax breaks given to companies elsewhere in Europe, and Ireland’s position as a peripheral Member State.

I stand with the European Greens when they campaign for Net neutrality, and protect whistle-blowers when they reveal the actions of Government and companies that needs exposure. I stand with Commissioner Margrethe Vestager when she pursues Google/Alphabet and others over the alleged antitrust violations.

CITIES

Cities can move quickly on climate change. I’ve spent the last eighteen months studying for a Masters in Cities at the London School of Economics, and I know that cities can unlock a low-carbon future. My final project looked at ‘Decarbonising Dublin’ and I’m convinced that the solutions to tackling climate change can be found here. They can be found in policies that promote walking and cycling, from Brussels to the Liffey Quays.  They can be found in District Heating using the heat from the Ringsend Incinerator and electricity generation. They can be found in policies that promote biodiversity, and in green and blue technologies that cope with extreme weather, and provide space for children to play. They can be found in improving air quality through low emission zones and reducing the incidence of asthma.

However, cities must also foster democracy. The gradual stripping away of powers from local government in Ireland leaves us as an outlier compared to other European Countries. We need to give our cities greater control over transport, over waste and over housing. Our lack of powers and the constraints on spending have left us incapable of responding quickly to climate change, the housing crisis, traffic congestion and other key issues. It is time for a directly elected mayor for Dublin with a remit to tackle these challenges and provide the vision for Dublin’s future.

It is wrong that our plans for public housing to require sign-off four times by Eoghan Murphy before we get the green light to build. It is wrong that Minister Shane Ross has dictated that there are less buses on our streets than ten years ago. It is wrong that there are over fifty different agencies with responsibility for transport in Greater Dublin. Dublin needs a directly-elected Mayor.

FINAL

The extraordinary young leader Greta Thunberg has shown us that speaking truth to power works. She’s speaking to the Environment Committee of the European Parliament tomorrow despite the efforts of the EPP and others to deny her a voice in the main chamber. She inspired the ten thousand school children here in Ireland who gathered outside Dáil Éireann to demand climate justice and a fair transition, and they won’t be going away. In his poem ‘Lies’ the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote: “Lying to the young is wrong...Telling them that God’s in his heaven and all’s well with the world is wrong...Our pupils will not forgive in us what we forgave.”

Greta Thunberg has shown that the young are not complacent. She has shown us that the young can separate truth from spin. She wants us to act, and we must act now.

The Citizens Assembly has told us that it wants us to act. However, it is about more than bird boxes and keep cups. It’s about clean energy, and A-rated homes. It’s about buses, trains and trams that aren’t packed to the gills, but are reliable, comfortable and affordable ways to get around. It’s about a child-friendly city with clean air to breathe and clear waters in Dublin Bay.Let’s ramp up action under the Water Directive so that the Liffey, the Dodder and the Tolka and our canals, even in the Docklands are clean enough to swim in.  It’s about a green city with trees for kids to climb, and parks a short walk from your door.

I’ve campaigned to make Dublin a better place for some time, I’m proud of my city and the changes that we’ve achieved, I want to work with our neighbours in Europe to deliver the climate action, the housing, the mobility improvements that will deliver a Living City for all.

I’m asking you to Vote Dublin, Vote Climate, Vote Green, Vote Cuffe on the 24th May.

ENDS

Changing Climates, Changing Communities

“The three-tongued glacier has begun to melt.

What will we do, they ask, when boulder-milt
Comes wallowing across the delta flats

And the miles-deep shag-ice makes its move?”

Seamus Heaney,  Höfn 2006

Thanks to St. Patricks College in Drumcondra for asking me to speak, and to Seamus Heaney, a man whose heart beats in time with the earth itself. His poem about the Höfn glacier in south-east Iceland is a reminder of the impact of climate change on a vulnerable world. I have a few images over on Slideshare to accompany this.

Just over a decade ago, in November 2002. I was living on Millmount Avenue, close to St. Patrick’s College, with my young family. I was working late, writing an article on Thursday 14th November. I failed to notice the first few texts from my partner, and by the time I noticed, the tone had become urgent: “Come home quickly”. I cycled back from the city centre through stalled traffic and heavy rain. The Tolka was flowing thick and fast under Drumcondra Bridge. As I turned down Millmount Avenue I realised that the road was under water, and shortly after I arrived into the house, the water gushed up from under the floorboards, until there was the best part of a metre of brown flood water throughout the house. We escaped with our young family over the back wall, passing our six week old child over the back garden wall to the waiting Guards and Civil Defence.

At that time I wrote “It was no act of god, but an act of man” that caused the flooding. Those floods were no doubt as severe as they were due to unplanned development upstream removing the natural soakage of wetlands close the Tolka’s banks. As we look ahead to your lives, there is no doubt in my mind that the acts of man, manifested through climate change will change our world in ways that we cannot even imagine. Thankfully in the case of the Tolka a brush with danger led to action to reduce the risk of future flooding events.

Today I want to address three facets of imaging the future
I wish to pay tribute to great men and women; I want express my grave concern that the wake up calls on climate are being ignored and I want urge you to take action.

John Tyndall was a Physicist from Co. Carlow. He published important works in the area of heat, sound and light, and demonstrated the greenhouse effect which is the foundation of much of the current work on climate.

Charles Keeling was an American scientist. He worked at Scripps Institute and at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii. His seminal work on the increase in carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere alerted the world to a changing climate. He charted the seasonal variations in levels of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere. He noted that in the Northern summer months, plants and trees absorbed greenhouse gases, but not enough to stop the increasing upward slope of their concentration.

In recent years many women have blazed new trails in tackling climate issues: Gro Harlem Bruntland, the Norwegian Prime Minister defined sustainability, Christiana Figueres, as the Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC, Connie Hedegaard, European Commissioner for Climate Action, and Mary Robinson in the field of climate justice. They all have all assisted our understanding and response to a world where the climate is changed.

Speaking recently at World Economic Forum in Davos, Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund stated that climate change not debt or austerity is "...the greatest economic challenge of the 21st Century." She went on to say in unscripted but sobering remarks to her audience that future generations would be "roasted, toasted, fried, and grilled."

It is easy to map the rises in sea level that will be a consequence of melting ice. It’s more difficult to predict the storm intensities and surges that can cause devastation. The North Sea Flood of 1953 that claimed the lives of thousands in the Netherlands and the UK led to a massive investment in flood defences. The 2005 New Orleans floods were a wake up call for the US, as was the recent Superstorm Sandy. In Ireland considerable flood relief works took place since the flooding of 2002. Will it take a massive climate related event before the causes, rather than the consequences of climate change are meaningfully addressed?

Outside of Ireland the consequences of a warming world are devastating. Rapid changes in habitat are killing off species, and decreasing biodiversity. There are increased movements of environmental refugees from vulnerable regions. However, the economic consequences are harder to predict.

No-one knows for certain what will happen to the world’s economy when vast agricultural regions lose their ability to grow traditional crops, when river basins lose their precipitation, or when voices are raised in anger.

No-one knows how the impact of a warming world of changing climates will impact on our children. We do know that there is a moral imperative to take action, to take action internationally, nationally and in our own lives.

In June 2012 the Secretariat of National Economic and Social Council published an Interim Report “Towards a New National Climate Policy”. At an institutional level it is important to note that NESC’s mission is to advise the Taoiseach on strategic issues relating to the efficient development of the economy and the achievement of social justice. NESC has a history of producing reports with strategic, long-term analyses of key economic and social development issues affecting Ireland. Although the Environmental Pillar is represented on the Council of NESC, their terms of reference have not changed to recognise the increased importance of the environment in recent years. This needs to change because NESC simply does not have the capacity, the understanding or the mandate to prioritise environmental issues.

NESC states: “Our starting point was that action on carbon emissions must be consistent with Ireland’s economic recovery, employment growth and stabilisation of the public finances”. All of these points are important, but if NESC fails to acknowledge that much of the life on the planet is under threat, then their understanding of the challenge will be flawed.

NESC reframes the Climate Change Challenge in Chapter Three by stating: “The opposite of compliance is thinking for ourselves.” At best this implies that a fresh approach is needed to tackle the issue, at worst it means that this Government has simply not been convinced of the need to take the issue seriously. The Reports states that we should explore tax measures that: “rely less on taxing ‘goods’ such as labour and enterprise, and more on taxing ‘bads’, such as environmental damage and resource depletion.” This is all well and good, but the train has left the station and it is time we caught up and got on board.

In November 2012 the World Bank published an important report “Turn Down the Heat -Why a 4° Warmer World Must be Avoided” The tone and the content is in marked contrast to the NESC Report. The World Bank states: There is no certainty that adaptation to a 4 degree world is possible … The projected 4 degree warming simply must not be allowed to occur. In his forward to the Report Dr. Jim Yong Kim, President of the World Bank Group says “This report is a stark reminder that climate change affects everything. The solutions don’t lie only in climate finance or climate projects. The solutions lie in effective risk management and ensuring all our work, all our thinking, is designed with the threat of a 4 degree world in mind.”

The World Bank has sounded the alarm, but the response from NESC is lagging. Where is their enthusiasm, and the resolve that is so desperately needed?

This domestic complacency needs to be dismantled. It does not involve false choices between the environment and the economy, it must be about both. One of the first ways that this can be achieved is through meaningful national legislation to set targets, for Ireland, for 2020, for 2030 and beyond. The 2009 Renewables Directive 2009/28/EC otherwise known as the “20 20 20 Directive” sets binding targets for greenhouse gas reductions, renewable energy but not energy efficiency, and that’s where the gap lies. An absence of targets is a failure to commit.

Action must take place at all levels. It can take place through the political process, but also through people’s lives, their studies, and through the organisations that inspire and guide them.

Internationally, the Conferences of the Parties will continue to meet every December. Can meaningful agreements be negotiated? It may be too late. The world population continues to rise, with global numbers equivalent to the city of Cork being added every day.

At European Level, the Commission and the Parliament have engaged with the challenge more clearly than other organisations, however the EU emissions trading system lacks sufficient ambition, and thus the current carbon price is too low. Mapping developed at European level through ESPON the European Observation Network for Territorial Development and Cohesion shows the effect of climate change through applying physical, environmental, social, cultural and economic criteria to different regions around Europe.

At National level, legislation and sectoral action is required. We need targets, sectoral allocations and realistic timetables. Last month the Irish Farming Association President John Bryan said “(the) IFA favours sectoral plans, as opposed to meaningless target-driven legislation, as a means to addressing the climate challenge.”

Targets are needed because evidence-based decision-making requires them. We already have clear figures for the amount of energy used in Ireland, and the emissions associated with them. We know the relative costs of different abatement measures in the Irish context. This sets the scene for choosing from the set of measures that are available to us today, not at some distant future date.

Without targets, without limits, we have nothing. A Bill with no targets is like a budget without the figures, or an emperor without clothes. In 2005 while in opposition, and in 2010 while in Government the Green Party produced legislation that contained targets and timetables for reducing our emissions. Had either of these bills been passed they would have given the certainty that businesses, communities and the planet so desperately need.

At regional level local authorities and other agencies can cooperate to take action. Dublin City Council has a climate change strategy that is up for renewal this year. It needs to be talked about and be seen as an integral part of the city’s strategy, rather than viewed as an add-on.

Within communities, there is significant scope for change. Traffic calming, a better bus service, community gardens can all help reduce emissions. However it is crucial that we move beyond the “unplug your phone charger” response. Real change requires a more involved grasp of the issues, and often a more fundamental response. There is a strong role for the media to educate and lead on this issue. It was heartening to pick up a current issue of the Sacred Heart Messenger magazine and read suggestions for calculating carbon footprints and carrying out carbon audits.

In my own life I try and fly less, drive less, and eat less meat. I spend more time in the neighbourhood where I live. These are all good things. We need to talk about them more.

Politicians like to give hope, I want to give you hope, so let me imagine a low carbon future. It might consist of quieter roads and streets with less motorised traffic, and more sounds like children’s’ footsteps and bicycle bells. It would contain warm homes both old and new that generate, rather than consume energy. There would be communities where bonds of friendship and connectivity exist that were unthinkable in a time where the car was king. There could be new neighbourhoods, carefully planned of terraced homes, tall trees, sunny courtyards, leafy play areas, and bustling cafes. On the bog of Allen 200 metre tall wind turbines connect to a pan-European grid. That could be our future. The alternative is more akin to that depicted in Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road” and is best avoided.

I remain gravely concerned at the inertia within our political system, the failure to show leadership on climate on the world stage, and the locked in climate carbon emissions that spell death and devastation for many, particularly in the developing world.

Policy rhetoric has been and still is almost entirely detached from climate reality. Scientific consensus and political consensus are worlds apart. As the singer and songwriter Paul Simon once wrote “I would not give you false hope, on this strange and mournful day”

Long journeys begin with small steps, but unless you know your destination you are doomed to failure. Targets for 2020, 2030 and beyond should be enshrined in Irish law.

We have entered the Anthropocene, a period where vulnerable coastal cities are flooded, fertile lands submerged, and crops fail. Many regions will have to stage a managed retreat from low-lying coastal towns and countryside. The 1% of us who can afford to fly and drive regularly will be responsible.

The young will not forgive what we forgive. It is time to act.

The upside to green living

Here's a piece from the Irish Times that I wrote in response to an article from Seán Byrne’s entitled “Green living may mean cold comfort for many”...

...Anyone who has spent time in a traffic jam might quibble with his suggestion that fewer car journeys imply a reduced quality of life. Similarly his view that a green lifestyle requires a loss of recreational showers is hardly that onerous. Showering with a friend is a time-honoured way of saving water, but installing a low-flow shower heads may suit those of a more puritanical leaning.


On a more serious note, a radical shift to reducing carbon emissions is crucial if we are to reduce the negative impact that our Western lifestyles are already imposing on developing countries. Climate change is already happening and it is the vulnerable in the developing world that are paying the price for our excessive consumption. There are many advantages to more careful consumption and travelling closer to home. A simple lesson from the Celtic Tiger years is that quality is worth more than quantity. Holidaying in Ireland can boost Ireland’s employment, and if you are travelling abroad, ‘slow travel’ by train and ferry can allow you to leave Dublin Port in the morning and arrive in Northern France by early evening without the stress of air travel. I highly recommend it. Communities that plan for walking and cycling generally have a higher quality of life than those built around the voracious needs of the private car. As an architect and town planner I know that we can design buildings and communities that require only a fraction of the energy that what was built over recent decades. There’s also significant scope for increased employment in retrofitting and upgrading existing buildings, and providing sustainable alternatives to increased car ownership and use.


Byrne suggests that driving may be more energy efficient than walking, but anyone concerned at rising hospital admissions due to obesity cannot ignore the importance of regular exercise as part of a healthy lifestyle. His extract from Timoney’s study is more appropriate to a school debate than a paper of record. His suggestion that wind energy requires ‘vast tracts of land’ ignores the fact that most of the land around wind-turbines apart from the turbine bases and access roads can be used for other uses such as grazing or food crops. Of course Government has to carefully approach the use of subsidies in the path towards a low-carbon economy. High subsidies for energy produced from photovoltaics may have distorted the energy market in Germany and Spain in recent years, but it did encourage investment in renewables in these countries. Proper life-cycle analysis is required of sustainable technologies, but the evidence shows that Government subsidies can speed up the adoption of experimental technologies into the mainstream. In the Irish context, the pay-back for solar water heating in new homes can be less than a decade. An easy-to-use calculator is available on the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s website.

Generally the private sector is better at choosing winners, but carrots are required as well as sticks, and pump-priming new areas of economic activity by the State can be worthwhile. The success of sustainable construction in recent years has resulted from a combination of European Directives; Irish Government regulation and grant-aid; and entrepreneurs prepared to put their money forward. I am proud of the role that the Green Party played during its time in Government to further environmental initiatives, despite the economic challenges that we also faced.


A greener lifestyle may involve less variety in food, but as I write I look out to a small urban garden where I grow vegetables such as artichokes and broad beans, and fruits including apples, plums and pears. Of course I eat imported food, but it’s worth bearing in mind fair trade, food miles, and carbon use when you purchase.


Tackling climate change is a deadly serious issue. Weather extremes of recent years have impacted most on poorer communities in sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere. There is a growing consensus that climate change is contributing to this instability. We have a moral duty to reduce our environmental impact on the planet, and in doing so to assist the most vulnerable on the planet.

Ciarán Cuffe is a lecturer in Planning at Dublin Institute of Technology and a former Green Party Minister of State

Crash, Bang, Wallop

Ouch, that hurt.

Two weeks after the event it all seems fairly clear.

The Green Party went into Government with Fianna Fáil. The IMF came in, and the electorate kicked out Fianna Fáil and anyone associated with them, and that included the Greens.

I had thought people would boot out Fianna Fáil back in 1997, when I first ran for the Dáil in Dublin Central. It all seemed stunningly obvious at the time. The Tribunals had been set up, and everyone was talking about corruption. Even the late Jim Mitchell had taken £5,000 from Ben Dunne, surely Fianna Fáil AND Fine Gael were going to take a hit in Dublin Central and elsewhere. Fat Chance.

In 2002, when I ran for office in Dún Laoghaire I was convinced that Fianna Fáil were for the high jump. Nope, back they came.

2007, and the mask appeared to be slipping. They came back with 78 seats. "The boom is getting boomier" said Bertie Ahern. If you can't beat them, work with them, and that's what we did four years ago.

The numbers meant that Fianna Fáil were going to be back in office anyway in 2007, with the help of the PDs, so why not green the Programme for Government? Small parties get the chance once in a generation to effect change, and we took that opportunity. We started to shift taxes away from labour to energy and resources, and make tax systems more sustainable and job-friendly. Meanwhile as we were beavering away at this, a tsunami came down the street in the form of the financial crisis and intervention by the IMF. No wonder we suffered. Despite trojan work from fantastic staff and supporters, the Green Party failed to win any Dail seats in Election 2011.

The election has delivered a clear result, but the issues that we campaigned on haven't gone away. As oil hits $115 a barrel, the issues of peak oil, energy security and climate change must remain in focus.

We brought in a transformative new planning act, but it requires vigilance to ensure that it fulfills its purpose. We published the Climate Change Response Bill, and we’ll be watching carefully to see that it proceeds. Other legislation such as the Noise Nuisance Bill and Dublin Bay Bill didn’t see the light of day, but deserve to do so.

Reform must be a theme for the Greens over the next five years. We need reform to make Government more transparent and open. We need reform to give Dublin a directly-elected mayor. We need reform to make local government more responsible to people's needs, and be more independent of central government. Perhaps we need to re-brand as the Green Reform Party to ensure that this message is clear.

I'll be watching to see how the new Government tackles some key issues. Metro North doesn't seem to get a mention in the Fine Gael / Labour Programme for Government. The new Children's Hospital seems to be in danger of being kicked to touch. Fine Gael voted against the 2010 Planning Act, and I'll be curious to see what Phil Hogan and Willie Penrose mean when they propose that "A democratically-decided Regional or City Plan will replace the present top-down Strategic Planning Guideline model." Climate Change gets just over two lines of a mention, so I'm not overly optimistic on that front either, even though we left a box-fresh Bill in the Senate that's ready to enact. The Dublin Mayor Bill doesn't even get a look-in, which is bad news for the capital, and there are no firm commitments to reduce the number of TDs. The Bill to ban Corporate Donations which contributed to the boom and bust economics of the Celtic Tiger years doesn't even get a mention.

Still, there are positives. Some of the local government reforms could be good, and I love the idea of providing an Irish version of www.FixMyStreet.com. Sure, if we could even come up with clear guidelines for local authorities to respond to email queries, we'd be well on our way to success in that area. I like the proposal to remove barriers to mobility across the public service, and feel that could transform government for the better. I was pleased to see Ruairi Quinn appointed to Education, and was glad to see that the year of free pre-school will be maintained. I wish him well in wrestling with the funding challenges of higher education.

The Green movement will remain as a force in Irish politics. Perhaps though we need to listen more, and lecture less. Perhaps we need to lead the way, but not instruct people that they have to follow us. We need to talk more about the good news that comes from implementing green policies, and less about the end being nigh.

I think I’ll enjoy the freedom of the weight of office being lifted, and in fact I’m already enjoying it. I’m not making too many plans for the moment, but I do know that I’ve been a campaigner for all of my adult life, and that will not go away.