Covid-style national solidarity is needed now on climate crisis

The Climate Action Bill is ambitious and will no doubt face pushback from the agri-food industry and other powerful interest groups

From left, Minister for the Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan, Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar announcing the final text of the Climate Action Bill. Credit: Rollingnews

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the Swiss psychiatrist, famously developed a five-step model to describe the stages of grief. These are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. While originally relating to the psychological processes around dying, her model has come to be applied to other areas where wrenching change is being contemplated.

We humans and our institutions are creatures of inertia. Change is generally resisted until the last possible moment. Ireland’s collective response to the need for drastic ...