Getting hot about climate change at Labour Youth Conference.

Labour Youth are holding their annual conference in Wexford. There’s about 60 or more of them in Whites Hotel from all parts of Ireland. Last night also saw a Mick Wallace public meeting in the same hotel. The official line there was that Mick’s numbers didn’t match expectation. That’s how you alliterate the number 10 these days.

This morning I put the head around the door to listen to the debate on Climate Change.  There are a number of motions on the topic of nuclear power and alternatives for offshore islands. They spoke about if Ireland wanted to build a nuclear power plant within spitting distance of the only location where it was originally proposed by Des O’Malley that Ireland would join the nuclear club.

Almost 40 years ago we baulked. The reality is that there is now a pressing need to reduce CO2 emission worldwide. Renewables are problematic when it comes to availability and tidal locations may be off limits due to environmental restrictions while the alternatives of wave hasn’t been moved past the experimental stage.

Now however our energy demand is greater, there is an All -Ireland energy market with the state connected to the European and British grid. In reality economically converting to nuclear would mean that we’d need a number of nuclear power plants so that when one station was off line due to maintenance the rest would pick up the slack. That means there’d be over capacity in the system, because at the same time there would remain on the system power stations already operating.

Ireland needs energy security. Should we rely on other countries to provide energy on a day to day basis? Ireland’s problem is that we need energy but we also need to comply with carbon emissions. However, if only our emissions were solely from energy production, they aren’t.

Transport, construction and agriculture in Ireland contribute to our emissions. The emphasis on reduction just doesn’t apply to me as a consumer of power. They apply to farmers, builders as well as Ryanair and your local trucker. But as was pointed out by one speaker, the increase in global temperatures past 2C is a given. 2C means 2C beyond where it is today. What we already have in this planet is causing climate change today.

Now, as one speaker pointed out, it seems that we’re not even going to stop at today plus 2C. 

And here’s the rub. Climate change can be tackled best by the countries that are richer. I visited Zambia in 2017. They rely on hydro electricity to power their economy. However in 2016, rainfall levels dropped so less power could be generated. Ireland however rolled on regardless. We are according to Leo Varadkar who can actually do something about this, environmental laggards. Countries like Zambia won’t have the ability that Ireland has to adapt.Climate change is climate injustice it loads the dice further against undeveloped countries.

In short we are behaving selfishly. Others will pay for our profligacy while we potter on. Soon we will be past asking how to limit the increase, the debate must switch to how CO2 can be taken out of the atmosphere so as to reverse the worst of what is yet to come.

There’s an old story about Michael D. At one hot and heavy Labour meeting his absence was excused on the basis that he was stuck in Rio waiting for a connecting flight home. “Yes” said Frank Cluskey,”that’s our Michael. Faced with the difficulty of saving the world and saving the Labour Party, Michael picks the easy option”.

Perhaps instead,  he might have been ahead of the curve? Fair play to Labour Youth  members for focusing on climate change, Not for the first time will one generation have to clean up a previous generation's mess.