Opinion

While LA burns, Fianna Fáil says pro-climate policies are ‘open for discussion’

Delays and denial are used by political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic

Burned cars and homes destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California. The incoming government must rise to the climate challenge and continue the work started in Ireland and Europe. Photograph: Zoe Myers/AFP via Getty Images
Burned cars and homes destroyed by the Eaton Fire in Altadena, California. The incoming government must rise to the climate challenge and continue the work started in Ireland and Europe. Photograph: Zoe Myers/AFP via Getty Images
Ciarán Cuffe
Tue Jan 14 2025 - 06:00

My family WhatsApp messages started coming through from Los Angeles last Wednesday evening.

My sister-in-law in South Pasadena fled with her family to San Diego to escape the approaching wildfires. Someone who had worked with my sister has lost her home to the fires, as has the mother-in-law of a neighbour from Dublin.

As I write, the death toll is 24 people, and is likely to rise. Meanwhile the red and orange imagery on our screens looms large. There’s a shot of Sunset Boulevard with flames behind, and the Hollywood sign with smoke and flames in the distance. Some video footage from the Malibu coast road brought to life Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel, The Road.

It felt similar two months ago when I was in Barcelona speaking at a conference on “decarbonising architecture”. News started coming into people’s phones about the floods in Valencia, just a few hours south, and hundreds of lives were lost as we spoke about the imperative for climate action. These events are starting to repeat themselves; it must be a call to greater action.

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Last week’s news from the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service was more than worrying. The year 2024 was the warmest on record globally, and the first calendar year that the average global temperature exceeded 1.5 degrees above its pre-industrial level.

We cannot simply kick the can down the road and say we’ll act at some unspecified date in the future. And yet, despite the ever-growing body of evidence, and the climate catastrophes that have struck European countries, the European People’s Party led by Manfred Weber continues with its green-bashing, attacking climate policies for short-term political gain.

By delaying the solutions urgently needed to curb the devastation of extreme weather events, centrist and right-wing parties are failing to protect the people, today and for future generations. Climate justice delayed is climate justice denied.

Obfuscation, delays and denial are not only being used by national political leaders on both sides of the Atlantic, similar tactics can also be found closer to home.

Here, some columnists, business groups and commentators have queried plans to reduce our emissions in Ireland. The Bus Connects plan? But how will drivers get to the car parks? Maintain flight levels at Dublin Airport? Not a chance; the Airport Authority states that “there is unequivocal national demand for air travel which is essential to Ireland as an island state”. Safe segregated cycle lanes? The Greens “have turned Dublin into a spaghetti junction of cycle lanes that have divided the city like East and West Berlin”, says Fine Gael senator and now MEP Regina Doherty.

Even now, as we face fires of biblical proportions in Los Angeles, we have Fianna Fáil saying the 2:1 ratio of expenditure between new public transport and new roads spending enshrined by the previous government is probably “open for discussion”. It seems like we are going back to the future with an incoming government that may endorse policies that continue with business as usual.

There is a moral imperative to act, but there are also financial reasons for doing so. The Irish Fiscal Advisory Council has warned that the State could face a cost of €20 billion if it fails to achieve reductions in carbon emissions by 2030. The new government must therefore continue to invest in public transport route improvements, lower fares, and ramp up retrofit supports. These measures tackle energy poverty, improve air quality, save people money on bills and help the planet.

Over the past five years I worked in the European Parliament on a European Green Deal that lays the foundation for action in the years ahead. We passed around 20 separate laws that tackle deforestation, support renewable fuels for aviation and shipping, encourage the renovation of our building stock and ensure a just transition.

The Nature Restoration Law, even reduced in scope, will help reset our relationship to the natural world to keep us safer. It is important that this work continues. If we do this right, we will improve the quality of people’s lives. It can provide decent employment for businesses small and large and it can reduce the risk of extreme weather events in the future.

Political decision-making requires courage. The incoming government must rise to the climate challenge and continue the work started in Ireland and Europe.

Ciarán Cuffe was a Green Party MEP from 2019 to 2024 and is co-chair of the European Green Party