The Earth's Corr: How many people have to die before COP agrees to ditch fossil fuels?

Will this be the year countries finally agree to phase out all fossil fuels and put the safety of their citizens first at the global climate conference?

After a year that saw tens of thousands of people lost to extreme floods, hurricanes, wildfires, drought, famine and heatwaves caused by carbon emissions that are messing with the climate - you'd think those horrors might actually spur politicians on to stop the very thing causing this extreme weather.

While we haven’t faced floods like we saw in Valencia yet, don’t kid yourself that it could never happen. A Dublin boffin said earlier this week that had the tides been different, Midleton in Cork could have suffered a similar fate when it flooded.

READ MORE: 2024 'virtually certain' to be warmest year yet

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Could the same be said for Newry, Portadown, Downpatrick and other coastal communities in NI. It’s not outside the realms of possibility such killer disasters are in our future.

But why should you care? I’ll break it down for you.

2024 is ‘virtually certain’ to be warmest year yet according to Europe’s climate change service, Copernicus Data from billions of sources also found 2024 will be the first year where global warming has surpassed the 1.5 degree limit set by world government’s in Paris to prevent the worst impacts of the climate crisis NI temperatures are between 2-4 degrees higher than they should be at this time of year We are getting more rain, which impacted food production including the mighty spud, this summer Flooding in the streets of Downpatrick (Image: Claudia Savage/PA Wire) Food prices are going up as a result of the climate crisis - and the harder it gets to produce food, the more expensive it will become We are getting more extreme weather around the world, which has impacted hundreds of NI tourists this year and no doubt left them out of pocket But above all else, we can’t escape the climate crisis - it’s coming for all of whether we care or not and it will result in a cascade of misery that will make all our lives worse.

So why don’t politicians seem to care as much as climate scientists?

It beats me. They seem to hang their careers on the issues that spark emotions around identity rather than survival.

Or maybe, like many of us, they just don’t know where to start and after years of austerity haven’t had the funding to kickstart the raft of changes needed.

Changes, which when delivered properly will transform the lives of everyone for the better. But then official talks about the climate crisis, even at UN conferences, always seem to focus on the finance and not the core problem - stopping fossil fuels.

We will need money to upgrade the electric grid, retrofit homes, electrify the energy system so it does the least harm possible to the environment.

A warming earth is putting polar bears and people at risk alike as ice caps melt, sea levels rise and countries like NI face increased rains and flooding (Image: EKATERINA ANISIMOVA/AFP via Getty Images)

But the cost of not doing those things now will be even greater down the line if we don’t get started.

If we wait to install flood defences until after a town is hit - we’re paying twice because we didn’t take the sage advice prevention is better than cure.

So why not forward plan and pay up now, to ease the financial burden down the line?

As the world’s weather gets worse and scenes of climate disaster become ever more frequent, it will come to a point where everyone is rushing at once to buy the tech needed to go net-zero.

But if we start now, manybe we won’t get caught up in the bidding wars that will no doubt ensue when the penny finally drops for the masses.

Flood water covers Market Street in Downpatrick (Image: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire)

I’m off to COP29 in Azerbaijan for the next two weeks to report on the international talks supposed to set out next steps on how the world will tackle the climate crisis and I will keep you posted on how that goes.

We have about five years of a carbon budget left for the whole world, but after Trump’s win and his oft noted love of ‘liquid gold’ we might reach that sooner.

Meanwhile, Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, recently highlighted how the world’s “current [climate] policies are taking us towards a catastrophic 3.1° temperature rise by the end of the century” but that “affordable, existing technologies can achieve the emissions reductions we need to meet the 1.5° limit”.

At 3.1 degrees we’ll be screwed. Bye bye coral reefs, healthy seas and soils for our food and hello to widespread famine, death and a hostile climate that will make me wish I lived on Mars.

(Image: Jonathan Porter / Press Eye)

I’ll even let you in on something you may not have heard - while much of the world is expected to scorch if things get that bad - we are facing a very different fate in NI.

If the Gulf Stream collapses, the island of Ireland will freeze, and we can wave goodbye to any hope of digging spuds or sending the cows out to pasture ever again.

That tipping point is edging ever closer, that’s how serious this is.

If you don’t care right now, it will get to a point where the climate crisis will be hurting you and your family so badly, you might wonder why it never crossed your mind to take an interest in this existential crisis until it was too late.

Information overload for Dalradian inquiry

Piles of paperwork have been sent to community groups to react to before the end of the month Lay people without whole legal teams will have to go through them before writing their rebuttal to an application to mine in the Sperrins

With the clock ticking on the close of submissions for the Dalradian goldmine inquiry, community groups are grappling with information overload after being sent boxes upon boxes of paperwork.

The local public inquiry into the plans starts in January - with interested parties asked to submit their rebuttals by the end of the month.

But I understand the amount of information presented is posing a major challenge, as those groups will have to read thousands of pages, digest what they state and then form their response.

It really makes me wonder if groups without a team of legal advisors and experts at hand are really getting a fair shake at the stick given how much they have to get through. It’s long past time we had some planning reform, so such a burden didn't fall on the shoulders of concerned citizens.

LQ BID RE[act]'s to climate crisis

People, place and planet are to take centre stage as the Linen Quarter BID’s RE[act] Festival returns to Belfast this November.

From November 12-14, guests are in line for a series of natural wonders including NI’s own Barra Best who will share some behind the scenes insights after filming Return to the Wild.

CEO of Fifty Shades Greener, Raquel Noboa, will equip participants with the tools needed to align their organisational goals with a greener, more equitable future.

Daniel Purdy Invest NI; Gerard Carlin SONI; Barra Best; Iain Bell ICC Belfast and LQ BID board member Ciara Davidson get ready for RE[act] Festival for a sustainable Belfast

Outscape NI and The National Trust, will host a bespoke nature walk and expert talk at Divis Mountain with a behind-the-scenes look at The Divis Project to transform this urban upland green space and enrich local communities.

DAERA will also outline Northern Ireland's Climate Change Act as we target net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and COP29 negotiations on the crisis flow in Baku.

Managing Director of LQ BID, Chris McCracken, said: “At the very essence of the festival is collaborative learning and discovering new ways of addressing the challenges we face when it comes to building a sustainable and resilient Belfast.

“Of course, we can’t propose a solution to every problem, but we can provide the forum to listen and learn from each other. As we look to world leaders as we gear up to COP29, we’re incredibly proud to provide RE[act] as a local response.”

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