After the Christmas carnival of consumption has ended, it is instructive to think about its climatic and environmental impact, how that is unequally distributed between richer and poorer states and peoples, and how best the damage can be communicated and acted upon.
Planetary boundaries, ecological footprints and climate event attribution studies are major concepts scientists use to organise and communicate their research on climatic impacts. Climate justice, techno-optimism, doughnut economics, degrowth, post-growth and climate reparations are some of the main strategies put forward to tackle those impacts. Climate denialists say humans are not responsible.
The planetary boundaries framework tracks nine processes to define a safe operating space for humanity. Over-shooting them increases the probability of irreversible tipping points, such as ocean current system shifts. Seven of nine boundaries are breached, as ocean acidification was added this year, alongside climate change, biodiversity loss, land-use change, freshwater stress, nutrient overload and chemical pollution. Only ozone and aerosol levels remain within safe limits.
Ecological footprints measure the different sources and impacts of climate change on nation-states and world income groups. The richest 20 per cent of nations are responsible for 44 per cent of the global ecological overshoot, whereas the poorest 40 per cent – with 43 per cent of the population – account for only 4 per cent.
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Put differently, these studies show the US lifestyle would require 5.1 Earths if the whole human population were to live in that way. For Ireland the figure is 3.3 and the EU average is 2.8. Collectively humanity now needs 1.7 Earths if current production and consumption are to be maintained sustainably. Earth Overshoot Dates identify the day when, if everybody lived as a certain nation-state does, all the biological resources that regenerate during the entire year would be used up. Ireland’s date was December 25th in 1971, September 5th in 2000 – and May 17th, 2025.
The world’s wealthiest 10 per cent (about 770 million people) are responsible for two-thirds of observed global warming since 1990, whereas the poorest 50 per cent (3.8 billion) account for only about 12 per cent. The top 1 per cent of the wealthiest individuals globally contributed 26 times the global average to increases in monthly one-in-100-year heat extremes globally and 17 times more to Amazon droughts.
Attribution studies of climate events have been developed in the past 20 years to quantify how much human-induced climate change makes specific weather extremes such as floods, storms or heatwaves more intense or frequent than would have been the case in the pre-industrial world. They can be applied rapidly after such events to clarify causation and encourage better societal and policy responses. A study of the Irish mini-heatwave of July 2025 found it would have been expected to occur every 14 years in the pre-industrial period, every six years now and every 2.5 years if there is a further 1.3 degrees global warming.
Each of these three scientific frameworks used to study climate change and environmental degradation can communicate research findings and stimulate mitigating action. Doughnut economics brings planetary boundary and footprint studies together in a model based on two concentric rings: a social foundation, to ensure that no one is left falling short on life’s essentials (defined by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals), and an ecological ceiling, to ensure humanity does not destabilise the systems that sustain all life. Between these two sets of boundaries a doughnut-shaped space exists in which humanity can thrive.
Such visual images make for more effective communication of climate change as a growing crisis. Yet media researchers and journalists see a need to show constructive action is possible, if doom-laden paralysis is to be avoided. Concrete links to job creation, health benefits and energy security make a difference by encouraging collective agency.
The politics of climate change ranges from justice and fairness in transitions towards a more sustainable world at national and global levels, through debates on how best to achieve that (including by technical innovation), to denialism. Radical degrowth and post-growth approaches demand a restructuring of global economic relations, opposing the late-capitalist imperatives driving them. Convincing people in the richer states and income groups to take such lifestyle hits is difficult; for some, denialism is a convenient response.
But the accumulating evidence that overshoots can trigger irreversible tipping points if collective action is not taken, and that small minorities of the richest people on Earth are most responsible for climate damage, gives reason for hope that a robust egalitarian eco-politics can be developed.
