Tuesday 7 January 2014, Dublin
Following the worst coastal storms and tidal surges in manyyears, the Green Party is urging Government to lead a process with LocalAuthorities to develop Local Climate Change Mitigation and AdaptationStrategies to help future-proof at-risk communities and assist in their effortsto adapt to changing climate and increasingly frequent extreme weather events.
"We can only attribute the events of recent weeks to achanging climate when in the future we have the ability to look retrospectivelyon medium and long-term trends. What is clear, however, is that climatemodelling is telling us that extremes of weather, and the frequency of suchevents, will become a regular feature of our future weather. Our own NationalClimate Change Strategy signals a clear role for Local Authorities in leadingadaptation and mitigation strategies." Said Green Party EnvironmentSpokesperson, Cllr Malcolm Noonan.
"Government should use the new cycle and reformed LocalGovernment structures to lead a collaborative process with communities todevelop strategies to firstly move towards decarbonisation, and secondly,prepare, plan, implement and monitor local strategies to deal with coastalerosion, storms, flooding, drought and other consequences of climate change.Giving ownership of such plans to communities is vital and will produce otherknock on benefits to local economies and social inclusion."
The Green Party argues that Local Authorities andemergency services are under-resourced at present to deal with the scale of thestorms of recent weeks and that it was due to the heroics of the people at thefrontline that any loss of life was prevented.
Ordinary people need to impress the urgency of this issueupon their local representatives, and begin to ask themselves the question, "Dowe frontload investment in adapting to these conditions, or payout huge sums inemergency funding to deal with the aftermath?" We think the answer is clear.The European Climate Adaptation Plan states that, 'adaptation is crucial tokeep the negative impacts of sea-level rise at an acceptable level. This maywell imply that some European countries will need to adopt a coastal zonemanagement policy that is more integrated and more forward looking than iscurrently the case.'
"In Ireland's case, the cost of developing adaptationstrategies is estimated to be about 0.05% of GDP, projects which are deemed inthe plan to be 'beneficial and affordable'. However, when we are being led by aGovernment who refuse to set binding targets for climate emission reductions intheir own proposed Climate Bill, how can we trust them to safeguard our coastalcommunities from future hardship and destruction?" Noonan concluded.
ENDS
Notes to Editors:
The EU Integrated Climate Adaptation Plans and link to CostalFlooding in Ireland:
http://www.climateadaptation.eu/ireland/
CllrMalcolm Noonan, Green Party Spokesperson for the Environment
086 8399418 | malcolm.noonan@kilkennycity.ie