European commissioner for the environment Jessika Roswall has told a conference in Dublin that damage to nature and climate present “immediate and long-term dangers” to human life and economies.
The commissioner said the destruction had become a security issue no country could afford to ignore.
“That is why this summer was so dangerous and its impact so profound,” she said of the spate of heatwaves that killed thousands and left many parts of Europe struggling with drought, fires, ruined crops and disrupted trade.
“The cost to our economies will run into tens of billions of euro and it will continue to grow,” she said.
“The European Central Bank recently outlined how three out of four European companies are critically dependent on ecosystem services; they are especially vulnerable to the risk of water scarcity, soil erosion and decline of pollinators. So the immediate and long-term dangers are crystal clear.”
Roswall was addressing the Environment Ireland conference a day after the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) warned that the current El Niño was set to become the strongest ever, intensifying the already severe effects of climate change.
A day earlier, the United Nations conceded the Paris Agreement goal of keeping average global temperature rise to no more than 1.5 degrees would be breached in the next few years.
It predicted devastating effects through worsening extreme weather events, glacier melt, sea level rise and land loss.
Met Éireann also said on Thursday the past summer was the hottest on record in Ireland, the second consecutive year the record has been broken.
Roswall said investing in protecting and securing water sources and ecosystems would pay off in helping people cope with such challenges.
“Healthy wetlands and free-flowing rivers act as barriers to drought and to flooding,” she said.
She insisted there was no backsliding on nature and climate commitments despite criticisms that the EU’s interest in the Green Deal was waning amid moves to ease the regulatory burden on business.
“We are not retreating from our environmental objectives,” she said.
“Instead we want to make our legislation work better in practice. Simplification done right is not the ending of ambition; it’s what brings ambition to life. We need to demonstrate that environmental responsibility does not stop economic development – it supercharges it.”
The conference also heard from Minister of State for the Environment Timmy Dooley, who said global warming is the defining challenge of our time.
“This Government is fully committed to climate action and accelerating the delivery of measures to reduce emissions across all sectors of our economy and society,” he said.
Separately, the Department of Climate responded to the United Nations and WMO reports, saying Met Éireann would provide early warning of any extreme weather and progress was being made on climate adaptation measures to protect people and property from climate change impacts.
“Climate data that underpins adaptation planning is constantly being updated,” it said.
It said the Environmental Protection Agency was working on a new and more detailed version of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment, first published last year.
Alex White, chairman of the Climate Change Advisory Council, said the United Nations’ assessment of the status of the 1.5 degree target was not a big surprise but one that should focus minds.
“It conveys the deadly seriousness of the situation to all of us,” he said. “It’s going to take a Herculean effort [to turn things around] so we must get on with doing that.”