Sir, – Regarding your editorial (June 22nd): The Climate Change Advisory Council is reported as warning that Ireland’s dependence on fossil fuels leaves the country vulnerable to oil price shocks. That may well be true, but it is a curious emphasis for a body established to advise on climate change.
The central problem with fossil fuels is not that they may become expensive or difficult to obtain, but that their continued use is driving a climate crisis whose consequences will be measured not in euro at the petrol pump, but in rising temperatures, extreme weather, biodiversity loss and damage to future generations.
If climate action requires economic scare stories to secure public support, something has gone badly wrong. Margaret Thatcher was warning publicly about climate change as far back as 1988.
Nearly four decades later, the scientific evidence is vastly stronger, yet public discussion still often revolves around fuel prices, energy security and consumer incentives rather than the central issue of reducing emissions.
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Could it be that public discourse is influenced by the interests of fossil fuel producers, including the United States, whose current administration champions “drill, baby, drill”, and which also hosts the social media platforms most commonly used in Ireland?
The failure is not one of knowledge, but of action. Your editorial also repeats the increasingly familiar assumption that meeting Ireland’s wind energy targets is the key to decarbonising transport.
Wind power undoubtedly has an important role, but no amount of additional wind generation can guarantee electricity supply when the wind is not blowing. Unless that reality is confronted honestly, Ireland will continue to substitute wishful thinking for a sensible energy policy.
It is therefore remarkable that one proven large-scale low-carbon electricity source capable of providing continuous power remains largely absent from the national conversation. Small modular nuclear reactors are often cited as a future possibility, but conventional nuclear power stations already operate successfully across much of the developed world.
Nuclear energy undoubtedly presents challenges, particularly in relation to waste management, yet those challenges must be weighed against a climate crisis whose impacts are global, cumulative and potentially irreversible.
Successive governments have understood the problem for years, yet today’s children and grandchildren are being left to confront the consequences of decades of delay and of a society that continues to consume Earth’s resources as though there were no tomorrow.
If Ireland is genuinely serious about reducing emissions rather than merely talking about them, an urgent and evidence-based debate on nuclear power can no longer be postponed. – Yours, etc.
James Candon,
Brussels 1150
Belgium
Sir, – Wind generation is the best option for producing green energy in Ireland. However, because of an arduous planning approval process, in which objectors can prevent or delay developments, Ireland falls well short of achieving its wind generation potential.
As a result, we continue to rely on fossil fuels for electricity generation.
The suggestion that new data centres should be allowed only if they use green energy is a constraint which, if applied, could be viewed as being discriminatory. (“We should halt new data centres until they use 100% green energy” June 22nd).
All electricity users want green energy. The solution lies not in restricting demand but in increasing supply. Attention should be directed at removing the onerous constraints imposed by the planning authorities on wind generation and let us all avail of green energy. – Yours, etc,
Peter Lynch,
Knocklyon,
Dublin 16
