LAST summer, much of southern Europe saw temperatures in excess of 40C, with parts of Spain and Italy particularly severely hit.
More than €217million was invested in water reduction measures to mitigate against drought impacting production sector supplies.
Professor of Geography and Climate Change in Maynooth University, Peter Thorne, described the heatwave as “just a small taste” of what is ahead, adding: “This is just what we are seeing today. What we will see is increasing frequency and ferocity going forward.”
Prof Thorne warned how air miles clocked up by Irish holidaymakers are contributing to the problem.
“Flying on holiday results in the most consequential climate impacts we have,” he said, and urged people to do their part by curbing air travel and holidaying in Ireland, or adapting their travel methods when overseas. He noted that international aircraft emissions have been increasing substantially over recent decades.
“There is a cognitive dissonance about this, that one’s person’s personal actions don’t matter, but ultimately it is the actions of eight billion people that are driving this problem.’
Meanwhile, Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary recently labelled ministers Eamon Ryan and Catherine Martin as “dunces” for failing to act on the airline’s demands to remove the cap limiting Dublin Airport to 32 million passengers per year.
Mr O’Leary accused Minister Ryan of failing to implement Ireland’s aviation policy, which is to “grow traffic, grow aviation jobs and grow the contribution of aviation to the Irish economy”.
He is right about one thing - our industrial society is addicted to exponential economic growth. When growth is down, suffering ensues. People lose jobs, wages stagnate and the whiff of Depression filters through the air.
The need for growth is locked into the political-economic system, and the need to service the capitalist debt-based economy model.
Politicians need to promise exponential growth to get elected.
However, climate scientist Peter Kalmus in ‘Being the Change’ (2017) writes that no law of physics requires exponential economic growth.
“We humans are free to organise our societies and meet our needs in other ways. Indeed, most societies over the course of human existence were not organised around exponential growth.
I believe that humanity’s grand challenge goes beyond global warming. Responding to global warming is an urgent first step.
Senior climate advisor to Friends of the Earth, Sadhbh O’Neill agrees. Last December, she argued that Dublin Airport Authority, in their planning application to Fingal County Council to increase passenger numbers from 32 million to 40 million per year, will have to demonstrate that more passengers can be accommodated in a way that is consistent with Ireland’s climate legislation and policies.
“While air travel contributes just 2.7% of global greenhouse gas emissions, this is expected to increase as demand continues to grow.
“To avoid any increase in carbon dioxide (CO2) from aviation, growth would need to be offset by fuel-efficiency gains or the use of alternative fossil-free fuels,” she said.
However, the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) assessment report (2022) noted that production process improvements and cost reductions from sustainable biofuels, low emission hydrogen and derivatives have not yet materialised.
The IPCC noted that a reduction in long haul aviation is the single most important demand-side mitigation measure for the sector.
“Since airlines are unlikely to do anything that upsets their business models, it is only by managing airport capacity that governments can limit the environmental and climate impacts of aviation,” the climate expert concludes.
Recommendations to resolve the impasse include taxes on aviation fuels, the development of sustainable aviation fuels, including hydrogen, restriction of private jets and halving corporate travel.
It is difficult for us to think of burning fossil fuels as harmful or wrong when everyone around us burns with abandon, every day.
Because fossil fuels are so in-built in a functioning modern society, it is difficult to imagine living any other way. Of course, we lived without fossil fuels up to 200 years ago, but the golden glow of ‘progress’ blinds us to the reality of crumbling ecosystems that are exponentially breaking down all around us.
Few people really understand the ecological impact of their actions - flying least of all. Perhaps if they did it might be a lever for change.
Dr Kalmus states the quickest way a human can warm the planet is by flying in a commercial plane. They contribute to global warming via carbon dioxide emissions, nitrous oxide emissions, contrails and cirrus cloud formation.
Carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) is a measurement of the total greenhouse gases emitted expressed in terms of the equivalent measure of CO2. The climate impact of airplanes is calculated at 0.8 kgCO2e per passenger mile, twice that for first class at 1.5 CO2e. That compares to 0.452 CO2e for an average passenger car per mile, with one passenger.
Mile for mile, the climate impact of flying is huge and for frequent fliers and long haul fliers, one of the most effective ways of reducing carbon footprint is to reduce air miles.
“The act of flying is an exercise of privilege,” Dr Kalmus states.
Globally, only about 5% of humans have ever flown.
Global warming is a market failure. Fossil fuels burnt in flying impose huge costs on society that are not addressed by the cost of an air ticket.
The only realistic way to fix this at the moment is through a direct price on greenhouse gas emissions in terms of a tax or a fee. According to Kalmus, “this would fix the market failure by charging emitters - including you and me - for the privilege of disrupting the climate”.
This can be achieved by setting a price on emissions in terms of a carbon tax or fee. The price can be per ton of CO2 emitted or CO2 equivalents (to include greenhouse gases and methane fugitive emissions). It can be set at the point of first sale and gradually increased, giving the economy time to adopt carbon-free alternatives while eventually making fossil fuels too expensive to merely burn.
Kalmus suggests if the price was set as a fee, the collected funds could be given back to the people. Revenue neutral fees tend to act as an economic boost due to increased spending and job creation.
And because taxes are never popular, a fee would be easier to pass into law than a tax.
Such a fee would make airplane tickets increasingly expensive, accelerating the transition away from frequent flying. Everyone would know the price would increase steadily over time, so everyone would naturally transition away from using airplanes as if they had no more carbon impact than a bus ticket.
In the end, we will have no choice. We cannot continue to consider the biosphere as a trash bin to keep extracting its treasures for short- term gain. In the end, we will have to learn live in alignment with the biosphere, both as individuals and as a collective.
That is the reality - no matter how many advocates and politicians Michael O’Leary takes it upon himself to abuse, as we collectively eventually accept our fate.
Dr Catherine Conlon is a public health doctor in Cork and former director of human health and nutrition
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