From rural buses to solar panels, our Green agenda has been transformative. Yet, vested interests and big polluters helped to poison the well of public thinking
Eamon Ryan was Irish Green party leader from 2011 to 2024
Ireland’s Green party went into government in 2020 determined to bring Ireland from laggard to leader on the climate crisis. Public opinion was with us, and we won more than 7% of the national vote. This mandate allowed us to negotiate a coalition agreement with Ireland’s two large centrist parties that was recognised by European Green colleagues as one of the greenest deals they had seen.
Over the past four and a half years we worked flat out to implement that programme. I think most independent experts would say the impact has been transformational. Last year Ireland’s emissions fell 6.8%, despite having one of Europe’s fastest growing economies and record population growth. The Greens switched spending in favour of public transport, cycling and walking. We rolled out a new rural bus service every week, while cutting young people’s fares by 60%. Passenger numbers took off immediately and we are only at the start of the transformation. A pipeline of big new projects is coming through our planning system, ready to go.
Eamon Ryan served as the minister for the environment and transport in Ireland’s outgoing coalition government and was Green party leader from 2011 to 2024
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
12/11/2024 - 02:00
12/11/2024 - 01:01
Thinktank founder says recent attempts to build new towns are ‘depressing, unsustainable and stupid’
Labour should build 12 new towns in England that are not car-dependent or built on flood plains, a former government adviser has said in a report.
A detailed plan for a dozen new towns, proposed by thinktanks Britain Remade and Create Streets, would mean 550,000 well-designed and appropriately located homes. The new homes would boost the economy by £13-28bn annually by improving access to high-paying jobs in well-connected cities, according to the report.
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12/11/2024 - 01:00
Pesticide Action Network analysis of government testing data finds chemicals linked to cancer and harmful to bees
Imported food has been found to have residues of 48 pesticides that have not been approved for use by British farmers, including chemicals linked to cancer and imidacloprid, which is harmful to bees, analysis shows.
Pesticide Action Network (PAN) went through UK government testing data, comparing the results for pesticide tests on imported and domestically produced food. They found there were residues of 46 cancer-linked pesticides in imported produce, compared with 19 in food of UK origin.. Importers include the EU, Peru, Thailand, Turkey and the US.
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12/11/2024 - 01:00
Research shows UK police arrest environmental and climate protesters at three times the average global rate
British police arrest environmental protesters at nearly three times the global average rate, research has found, revealing the country as a world leader in the legal crackdown on climate activism.
Only Australia arrested climate and environmental protesters at a higher rate than UK police. One in five Australian eco-protests led to arrests, compared with about 17% in the UK. The global average rate is 6.7%.
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12/10/2024 - 15:20
US Fish and Wildlife Service extends protections to ‘iconic’ insects, who experts say may not survive climate crisis
The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision on Tuesday to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies after years of warnings from environmentalists that populations are shrinking and the beloved pollinator may not survive the climate crisis.
Officials plans to add the butterfly to the threatened species list by the end of next year following an extensive public comment period.
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12/10/2024 - 12:38
Drastic shift driven by frequent wildfires, pushing surface air temperatures to second-warmest on record since 1900
The Arctic tundra is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by frequent wildfires that are turning it into a net source of carbon dioxide emissions after millennia of acting as a carbon sink, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Tuesday.
This drastic shift is detailed in Noaa’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, which revealed that annual surface air temperatures in the Arctic this year were the second-warmest on record since 1900.
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12/10/2024 - 11:54
Fast-growing and small-seeded tree species are dominating Brazilian forests in regions with high levels of deforestation and degradation, a new study shows. This has potential implications for the ecosystem services these forests provide, including the ability of these 'disturbed' forests to absorb and store carbon. This is because these 'winning' species grow fast but die young, as their stems and branches are far less dense than the slow growing tree species they replace. Wildlife species adapted to consuming and dispersing the large seeds of tree species that are being lost in human-modified landscapes may also be affected by these shifts.
12/10/2024 - 11:51
While sustaining friendships from afar can be challenging, they may offer unexpected benefits for environmental conservation. A new study found that these social ties can positively influence community-based conservation. While the study focused on 28 fishing villages in northern Tanzania, it has potential broader implications for global conservation efforts.
12/10/2024 - 09:00
Exclusive: Glenn Platt says opposition leader’s ‘lazy’ response to report undermines science
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A former CSIRO energy director has said Peter Dutton’s attempt to politicise the national science agency’s work on the likely costs of nuclear reactors is “incredibly disappointing” and “absurd”.
The opposition leader attacked the CSIRO after its latest GenCost report reaffirmed that electricity from nuclear energy in Australia would be at least 50% more expensive than power from solar and wind, backed up with storage.
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12/10/2024 - 08:42
Friends of the Earth calls on government to rein in growth of datacentres for fear they could increase fossil fuel use
Ireland has allowed itself to become a “data dumping ground” for big technology companies such as Amazon and Meta which are monopolising clean energy generation for their datacentres, campaigners claim.
They say the growth of the cloud storage sector in Ireland is so rapid it is threatening the country’s legally binding decarbonisation commitments.
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