Mrs. Robinson
Mary Robinson was president of Ireland from 1990-97 and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from then until 2003. She has a new book out called Climate Justice and last night she spoke to a packed audience at Ulster University.
She is a wonderful speaker, charming, gracious, very committed to addressing the injustices of climate change (we who have caused it are not taking the direct hit smacking those who have not caused it, e.g. subsistence farmers in Africa). She does a podcast on climate with an Irish comedienne called The Mothers of Invention that I should probably listen to--like all the other podcasts I’m not listening to.
She spoke fondly of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, whom friends call Arch. At a UN panel where desperate people shared stories of drought, flood, goat herds reduced to 20 from 200, and so on, a reporter asked him why he seems optimistic. He replied that he is not optimistic but he is a prisoner of hope. It’s a lovely phrase and one that makes sense for a spiritual person. His faith must dictate that hope cannot be abandoned.
Someone in the audience asked a question I wanted to ask about Ireland’s record on climate--Ireland is still burning peat on an industrial scale--creating higher emissions than coal. Irish Aid is doing a great job helping climate-stricken women in Malawi. But how much better if it addressed the underlying problem. Ireland set a goal of 20% reduction in emissions by 2020. It is on target to achieve 1%. Part of its problem is huge data centres--when you welcome companies to your shores by allowing them to dodge taxes, turns out energy consumption shoots up.
Robinson's response was that Ireland is divesting its state pension fund from carbon investments. I’m sorry but that is underwhelming. She clearly understands the urgency of the issue--the stakes got higher recently when an IPCC report came out confirming that 1.5 degrees of average global warming is the appropriate target, not 2 degrees. That target will be much harder but the alternative is the collapse of ice sheets, which will flood cities housing hundreds and millions of people. The leader of the island of Kiribati has purchased land in Fiji so his people will have somewhere to go when their country goes under water. The Marshall Islands are also looking for higher ground. As Tears for Fears said, It’s a Very Very Mad World.
10-22