Ireland is going to have to relocate development and infrastructure away from parts of the coastline due to climate change and sea level rise, a leading academic has said.
As The Sunday Independent reports, Trinity College Dublin’s (TCD) first chair of climate science Prof Karen Wiltshire believes there is a “disconnect” between current planning legislation and the reality of climate breakdown.
She told the newspaper that developments like that currently being constructed on Dublin’s Poolbeg peninsula should really be “built on stilts” to protect them against sea level rise.
Professor Karen Wiltshire and Richie Boucher, chairman of CRH, at the Gaia sculpture in Trinity's Long Room Photo: Paul Sharp
“Dublin and Cork have the highest levels of sea rise in Europe, “she said.
Prof Wiltshire, a TCD graduate, is a coastal research expert who worked with the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) for Polar and Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany.
“Where it is more economical to retreat from the coast, we are going to have to do it here in Ireland – though on a case by case basis,”she says.
Prof Wiltshire’s new post has been funded by Cement Roadstone Holdings (CRH) which was Ireland’s third largest industrial emitter of carbon dioxide last year.
“The government that paid my salary in the past never told me what to do, and the same applies with CRH,”she told the newspaper.
Prof Wiltshire believes food security is a big issue for Ireland already, given the impact of a changing climate on farming and fishing.
Read The Sunday Independent here
