Editorial: Rolling back climate commitments simply no longer an option

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan (left) and European election candidate Ciarán Cuffe at the RDS during the count for the local and European elections. Photo: PA

Editorial

In literature as in life, there is a trope where only in defeat does character reveal itself. The raw pain on the face of Green MEP Ciarán Cuffe told its own story. His honesty in accepting his European election loss was the epitome of grace under pressure.

“It wasn’t a good day for me,” he said, before adding: “The issues are much bigger than one person or one party.”

He also made reference to the rising voices of those who feel the State should help its most vulnerable, saying: “We need to be building bridges, not walls, in Europe and at home.”

The election results have provided much room for thought. Many of those who saw their expectations crash against the will of the people will have to regroup.

For Sinn Féin, the past week has been sobering. Party leader Mary Lou McDonald believed pent-up voter anger against the Government had been deflected, sweeping in a wave of independents.

But it is just as possible that voters looked hard at what each party or candidate was offering and made up their minds accordingly.

Shifts on a wide range of key issues from housing to the referendums to migrants appeared to cause the party to slip its moorings. It will candidly look at its own role in failing to connect with voters and learn the lessons.

Eamon Ryan’s scarcely concealed chagrin at his coalition partners’ distancing themselves from fundamental policy positions was more understandable.

We may like to forget about green issues, but as Al Gore pointed out so many years ago, “the inconvenient truth” is that such issues will not forget about us. For instance, the cost of dealing with extreme weather events caused by climate change may surpass €3bn between now and 2030, it has been estimated.

That is the amount cited to foot the bill for dealing with events such as flooding, storm damage and coastal erosion. This month it also emerged that the State is facing payments of at least €5bn before the end of the decade over our failure to reduce greenhouse gases in line with EU targets.

In Brussels, centrist parties will hold a majority, but gains for right-wing and far-right parties sceptical of the EU’s Green Deal package of policies will have an impact.

Ambitious EU climate policies will now be harder to pass.

“I don’t think that we’ll be rolling back on climate policies, but I do think it will be more complicated to get new policies off the ground,” said Bas Eickhout, head of the EU’s Greens group.

All EU governments, including our own, have agreed in law to cut greenhouse emissions by 55pc from the 1990 levels.

Blowing hot or cold on rhetoric is one thing, especially during an election campaign; but backsliding on commitments to avoid guaranteed catastrophe is really not a serious option.