By Jonathan Diebold
The disaster movie 2012 shows a world ravaged by extreme weather events, apparently predicted hundreds of years prior by the Mayan civilisation. But it doesn’t take an ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to predict the floods which have afflicted Ireland recently, nor that floods will continue to afflict the country, and that they’re only getting worse. Yet somehow the state remains woefully underprepared, seemingly unaware of the fact that in Ireland it rains, and it’s raining more every year.
Storm Chandra brought days of flooding to an already rainy January. Across the east coast, from Dublin to Wexford, weather stations experienced rainfall over double the Long-Term 1990-2020 Average (LTA). Dublin experienced its second-wettest January since records began. The weather station in Johnstown, Co Wexford, recorded well over half a metre of rainfall over the winter months, November to January, the highest ever recorded there. Parts of the west coast, from Mayo to Kerry, had only a single day without rain for the entire month.
The frequency and intensity of storms and other extreme weather events are increasing everywhere, and have been for many years. Basic physics shows that for every degree of warming, the air holds 7% more moisture, an exponential relationship which hints at even worse rainfall to come. Internationally, floods and storms directly linked to climate change have killed tens of thousands in this decade, including events like Storm Daniel (2023), which killed over 11,000 across several Mediterranean countries, the 2022 Pakistan floods, which killed over 1,700, and the 2020 floods, which swept South Asia, killing 6,500.
Flood defenses inadequate
In January 2016, Micheál Martin criticised a Fine Gael government as ill-prepared for storms Desmond, Eva, and Frank. The only thing that has changed since then is that he became Taoiseach. Flood defence schemes continue to flounder. In Clontarf, flood defences have been promised since 2002. They are not due for completion until the 2030s. Indeed, of the 94 flood relief schemes in progress in the state, nearly three-quarters have not even reached the planning stage. In many parts of the country, places like Cork, flooding seems constant. In the aftermath of Storm Éowyn last year, a report from Engineers Ireland found that fewer than one in five of its members thought Ireland’s flood defences were adequate.
A decade and a half of austerity and a lack of investment have put communities across the island at risk. Instead of investing record budget surpluses into vital long-term infrastructure projects such as flood defences, the Government gave away hundreds of millions to developers and big business, through tax cuts and VAT reductions. Meanwhile, it’s ordinary people who will suffer the greatest impact from these floods: those finding themselves living in increasingly flood-prone areas are increasingly being denied insurance, a trend that the Central Bank says is only going to increase, leaving them out of pocket when the government fails to invest. Unite the Union has launched an initiative to put pressure on the Government for workers’ rights legislation to keep up with climate science, calling for a right to climate leave – for workers not to be forced to work in unsafe weather conditions.
As well as major investment in serious flood defences, we need real measures to tackle the climate catastrophe. Demands such as free public transport, a rapid acceleration to renewable energy, a moratorium on data centres, and the retrofitting of all homes and public buildings should be front and centre. The planet is being burned; those doing the burning are making billions in profit from the flames. The wealth made by the capitalist class from the destruction and decimation of our planet should be seized and used democratically in a socialist economy, which can do whatever is possible to undo or mitigate as much of the damage as possible.
This is not an easy task, or a small one – capitalism is an international system, and it will take an international movement to overthrow it. But there is more urgency to this task than ever. Hundreds of thousands have been killed by climate change – from extreme weather, drought, and resulting hunger and sickness – and millions displaced. And it gets worse every day. The need for a struggle against capitalism is becoming every day more necessary and urgent. Every person who opposes and abhors this system must get active to help build a socialist movement that unites workers, young people, and all the exploited and oppressed in a fight to save the planet.
