What can we learn from Covid about responding to the energy and climate crisis?

On May 9th 2019, the Dáil declared a climate and biodiversity emergency. The declaration was hastily voted on with just six TDs present in the Dáil with Green Party TD Eamon Ryan observing “we have declared a climate emergency in our own Irish way.”

If the pandemic can teach us anything, surely it can point to an appropriate political response to an unprecedented crisis. In March 2020, just three days after the first Covid lockdown was announced, the Government published a public information booklet to be sent to every household. There was endless media coverage (possibly too much), and almost daily briefings by Nphet (National Public Health Emergency Team) and the three Government party leaders for nearly two years. The 2 million social distancing posters and stickers are still everywhere to be seen. The money followed the declaration of a public health emergency. Total expenditures for just the first year of the pandemic amounted to €24.6 billion, of which €15 million was spent on communications by the HSE.

[ We are living in a time of chronic infantilisation and it’s hurting our environment ]

[ Diarmaid Ferriter: Greece burns while the tourists fiddle with their phones ]

[ Temperatures to exceed 30 degrees again as heatwave continues with status yellow warning ]

For all the talk of a climate crisis and a looming energy crisis, there is little sign that governments are applying lessons learned during the pandemic. Researchers at the University of Oxford studied the pandemic to see what lessons might be relevant for climate mitigation. They found that delay is costly, but early and determined action is politically difficult. Broad public support is critical for early action and underestimating damages impacts support. They noted that effective communication strategies for inoculating citizens against misinformation are needed to navigate value judgments at the science-policy interface.

After a summer of unprecedented heatwaves, wildfires and droughts across Europe, now is the time to apply these lessons in earnest, and fast. Communicating the crisis effectively, however, needs to involve more than Covid-style public health advice. It requires a paradigm shift in public discourse aimed at raising levels of awareness and understanding, as well as mobilising people to act together for deep structural change.

London Letter: Mayoral races could determine if Rishi Sunak sinks or swims

---

Laura Kennedy: It’s hard to put my finger on what’s different about the atmosphere in this gym

---

Losses narrow at country’s most expensive day school

---

Hot school meals: A close look at the ingredients list is not pretty. This is industrial food

---

Climate conversations and citizen assemblies are all very well, but they don’t reach everyone

Dr. Genevieve Guenther founder of the NGO End Climate Silence says communicators should help the public feel three specific emotions: fear of climate breakdown, outrage that powerful actors are blocking the passage of effective climate policy, and desire for a transformed global economy. Narratives need to be local and should highlight the human suffering that climate change is causing or is likely to cause in the near future. Guenther also calls on scientists to step outside their comfort zones and embrace a risk-communication framework that includes the full representation of climate horrors along with “fat-tailed” risks of different climate scenarios.

Bearing all of this in mind, what could the Government do? First, it needs to inform the public directly. Climate conversations and citizen assemblies are all very well, but they don’t reach everyone. We need resources, posters, ads, social media campaigns, visual tools and appropriate messaging for different social groups. The public profile of bodies such as the Climate Change Advisory Council should be significantly enhanced. The media plays a crucial role so resourcing public service broadcasting properly is key, along with placing curbs on advertising of carbon-intensive products and services (we did this to the tobacco industry decades ago).

But all of this still raises the question of what the message actually is. If we’re telling the public there’s a crisis, what are we asking them to do? Obviously ending our reliance on fossil fuels is the top priority, throughout the economy.

The National Framework on Energy Security started earlier this year is a case in point. It provides a detailed analysis of Ireland’s vulnerability to oil and gas supply disruptions and related price shocks and power shortages. Given that infrastructure can’t be built quickly, demand reduction and income support measures are the only tools left in the toolbox that we can use in the short term.

However, the framework is remarkably short on concrete decisions and the Government seems to have taken a “wait and see” attitude. It contains no commitment to implement the recommendations of the IEA in relation to reducing our reliance on oil and gas, such as lowering speed limits, introducing a windfall tax on the profits of utilities, and ramping up home insulation campaigns in advance of winter. Meanwhile, the government’s public information campaign “Reduce Your Use” ducks the challenge of communicating the climate emergency altogether and offers suggestions for reducing travel and heating costs instead on a pretty dull Government website.

Crisis, what crisis?