Daniel Murray: New IPCC report is yet another climate change wake-up call for the Irish government

Ireland has adopted ambitious targets since the Green Party entered government, but setting them and achieving them are two very different things

Firefighters stand near a pine forest wildfire outside the village of Athikia in Peloponnese. Summer fires are frequent in Greece, but the country’s government has blamed the high number this year, in part, on climate change. Picture: Getty

World leaders have not had a shortage of wake-up calls on climate change.

Over the last 30 years alone, numerous reports published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body, have illustrated the strengthening international science around global warming, the pre-dominant role of human derived greenhouse gas emissions in causing it, and the potentially devastating consequences of increased global temperatures on climate systems, sea levels, polar ice cover and ocean life.