There is, obviously, still a disconnect between the big known known and actually doing anything about it, whether it comes to adaptation or to emissions reductions.
On Tuesday, the government guillotined two pieces of legislation with serious climate implications, meaning they were rammed through the Dáil with just a couple of hours debate, as my colleagues Rónán Duffy and Jane Matthews reported.
One is the Strategic Gas Reserve Bill, to allow the government to build a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) import and storage facility, and allow Darragh O’Brien, the energy minister, to bypass normal planning and permitting processes to give it the green light. The other will empower O’Brien to lift Dublin Airport’s 32 million passenger cap and prevent future caps. Both are now on their way to the Seanad.
The government has written provisions into both pieces of legislation to exempt the minister’s actions from the provisions of section 15 of the Climate Act, which requires state bodies to perform their functions in a manner consistent with the State’s climate objectives.
Labour’s climate spokesman Ciarán Ahern described this aspect of the bills as “destructive”, systematically dismantling guardrails the previous government put around Ireland’s climate obligations.
O’Brien, the climate minister, said the LNG legislation was “absolutely urgent” given that only 20% of Ireland’s gas is produced domestically, from the Corrib field.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that when the government is rushing through debate of this type just days after temperature records were smashed in an extreme climate event, there is only so much scientists can do to help us join the dots.
It’s clear too that far more people read our coverage of the recent hot weather itself than our stories on the politics underpinning Ireland's climate response (and we doubt we're alone in that).
Perhaps the media’s reflexive tendency to point up the traditionally fun aspects of warm weather is part of the reason for this cognitive dissonance (although cognitive dissonance by definition involves psychological discomfort at the contradiction in your views; whatever about the public more generally, the government does not seem particularly uncomfortable about its position).
