Kathriona Devereux: I weep at our climate change failures... but I won’t give up

A news headline made me cry. It wasn’t about a million euro’s worth of cocaine seized in Cork Airport, or a life sentence for a senseless murder, or an insane amount of money spent to transfer a footballer from one club to another.

It said, ‘Battle to halt global heating at 1.5 degrees is lost’.

It is the official confirmation by the UN of what we all know is happening - the earth is heating up and bad things are happening.

‘Bad things’ like the most extreme heatwave ever recorded hitting Europe this summer, killing thousands, wildfires sweeping through French, Spanish, and even Tipperary landscapes, glaciers melting, causing tsunami-like flash floods in Nepal, inevitable food price rises because of incessant drought.

Reading the headline, I thought of people living in low-lying countries like the Maldives, Tuvalu, Kiribati. For them, that bleak headline means their islands might be uninhabitable in the coming decades.

In response, the President of Palau, a Pacific Island nation with no traffic lights and a population of 18,000, said: “It is hard to overstate the depth of emotion for those of us living on the frontline.”

Limiting Overshoot

The UN report ringing the death knell is titled Limiting Overshoot. It details how the world is now 1.4C warmer than before the Industrial Revolution when we started polluting our planet at an industrial scale, and will inevitably exceed 1.5C because of our failure to curb greenhouse gases.

Just over a decade ago, the world gathered in Paris and agreed to try and limit warming to 1.5C. There were a lot of ‘commitments’ and ‘targets’ and there has been an enormous expansion of renewable energy globally, and many EU countries are on track to drastically cut emissions by 2030 - not Ireland though.

Countries’ commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions under the Paris Agreement have reduced projected global warming by the end of the 21st century from an unimaginable 3.7-4.8C to a, still terrifying, 2.4-2.6C.

But, despite political promises, global CO2 emissions, largely from fossil fuels, continue to rise and reach record levels.

Make no mistake, exceeding 1.5C is a moral and political failure that has locked us and future generations into an unpredictable life on planet Earth.

There was an opportunity, if every polluting nation had made their promised cuts to greenhouse gas emissions, that we would have averted the worst. But we didn’t.

And now UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has said: “Humanity is speeding past the limit to avoid climate catastrophe”, and warned that every fraction of a degree will cost lives, destroy livelihoods, and deepen inequality.

But he always has some note of positivity. “We can still bring warming back below 1.5C by the end of the century,” he said. “We must make the overshoot as small and short as possible, limiting how high temperatures rise and how long they remain above 1.5.”

The report is stark and blunt. “There are no good outcomes above 1.5C. Extreme weather, glacier melt, ecosystem loss and sea-level rise will intensify.

“Some Small Island Developing States and low-lying coastal cities could be partially or completely submerged. Risks of tipping points will grow.

“Human health, food and water security, cities and infrastructure will come under increasing strain. These impacts will not be distributed equally, and some losses will be irreversible even if global temperatures eventually decline.”

However, the report is not called ‘We Failed. Give Up. Start Prepping’ - although some emergency preparedness is probably wise with the approaching storm season.

It urges nations to redouble their efforts to phase out fossil fuels and reduce other sources of emissions, to limit peak warming to 1.8C and then use carbon removal methods to bring temperatures back to 1.5C or below this century.

The emphasis remains on cutting greenhouse gas emissions ASAP.

Infuriatingly, the intervening years since the Paris Agreement are littered with unheeded reports.

Will this one go on the shelf next to all the others? Will we continue to shrug our shoulders to dire climate news?

Or will we get angry and motivated to compel our politicians and public servants to do more to build a sustainable future?

You’ve seen nothing yet

Last week, Met Éireann confirmed that 2026 was the warmest summer on record. Scientists say that, as the planet heats beyond 1.5C, we may look back fondly on summers like 2026 as the ‘cooler’ summers of the future.

And the chances of experiencing this kind of extreme heat are increasing. Research suggests that temperatures like those experienced during the exceptionally warm summer could occur around once every five years in our warmed world.

Meanwhile, the extremely wet winter of 2025/26 is a reminder of the other side of a warming climate.

Ireland is expected to see both more dry periods and more intense heavy rainfall events - neither of which we are well prepared for.

While the depressing climate news unfolded, another headline grabbed my attention: ‘15% increase in adult fares for public transport from January’. Unfortunate timing to drop that clanger.

One of the best tools that we have to get people out of cars, ease traffic congestion, and move to more sustainable means of transport is going to get more expensive!

We have the money to welcome a war-mongering president, and police the protests against him, but not enough money to reward positive behaviour and climate action by keeping bus fares affordable.

I despair! But I don’t give up.

I keep chipping away at ways to reduce my use of fossil fuels and I dream of a headline in the future that says, ‘Global greenhouse gas emissions are falling’.