Mayo general election candidate calls for action to tackle climate change

A MAYO General Election candidate believes the devastating floods hitting Spain is further evidence that climate change is real and has to be tackled.

Sinn Féin councillor and General Election candidate Gerry Murray made the comments at the meeting of Mayo County Council's Environment, Climate Change and Agriculture Strategic Policy Committee (SPC).

Cllr Murray, who is the Chairman of the SPC said that the committee is one of the more important SPC's in the council because of the challenge they face in terms of climate change. He highlighted the recent floods in Valencia and other parts of Spain as evidence that the issue is real and governments along with the EU had to be serious about facing up to the problem.

“I think that except for the more extreme deniers, the general consensus at the moment is that climate change is real and is here with us and has to be tackled. If you look at the climate out there today, it is not the weather you expect in November so obviously there is something going wrong. The huge tragedy happening in Spain in the last week is further evidence that there are serious challenges ahead of us.

“There is going to be serious commercial implications for a lot of sectors and how that is managed by the government, EU and indeed the UN is going to be one of the issues of this decade. There is no doubt there is a huge challenge before us and the real question at this stage is how many natural disasters do we need before we wake up and smell the coffee. It is a hugely serious problem. The objective of the EU is that we will be a carbon neutral economy by 2050 but at the current pace of change that looks more like 2080. I think things are coming to a head,” he said.

The Charlestown-based councillor added that young people will be at the forefront in making changes to reduce carbon footprint and at the moment they are impatient at the slow progress of change.

“People who have graduated from university in environmental science are acutely aware of the problems and many of the NGO's out there who campaign on this issue are made up of people in their 20s. They have no qualms in telling that they too have power and they say their greatest power is to consume or not to consume and that is the weapon they intend to use in the future if we don't get our act together,” he concluded.