Leitrim activist among Irish delegation as COP kicks off in Türkiye

The world's largest climate conference kicked off in Antalya, Türkiye, on Monday with thousands of people from around the world attending to tackle the challenge of climate change.

Among them is Leslie O’Hara, a Carrick-on-Shannon man with a long background in environmental activism who helped found the Leitrim Environmental Network to help with the campaign against fracking in the county and who works with the Better Energies Alliance in the county.

“The scientists are now saying that the weather next year is actually going to be warmer than this year - that in turn has its own consequences,” he says.

This is not the Carrick natives' first trip to a COP; however, he says it is the first so heavily focused on managing the effects of climate change.

“What's interesting about this COP meeting is that normally it focuses on climate change, but there's also going to be about four thousand workshops on sustainable food production. “

Experts warn that rising temperatures are a driving force behind food instability globally as droughts reduce harvests, floods destroy crops, and storms can disrupt markets and livelihoods.

In countries where temperatures have increased by around 1 degree, the World Food Programme (WFP) has found that the proportion of people facing crisis levels of food insecurity increases by almost 5 per cent. Devising ways to deal with the change that has already occurred is a central part of this meeting.

O’Hara will be amongst an Irish delegation that includes Professor John Sweeney and Oisín Coghlan, Director of Friends of the Earth.

At the conference, there will be lobbying with a wider Irish delegation, including department members and the minister to attend the event.

O'Hara admits it's a long distance to travel to lobby for local issues, but it is a good opportunity to do so, and one he will look to exploit. He intends to convey the importance of Ireland adopting offshore wind energy to members of the department and the minister while there.

“This would solve so many of our problems and would provide us with not just energy security, but we would also be able to export the stuff in the form of hydrogen, and it would resolve not a lot of stuff, whether it's truckers or whether it's farmers in terms of the cost of their diesel and all that sort of stuff. It would just be a total and over game changer.”

The Irish government's policy of importing gas is also an area of concern for the environment, says O’Hara.

“What we're not proud about, and the fact one of the reasons I am going to COP is that the government are now trying to import fracked gas, fracked LNG, into the Shannon estuary, and we're obviously trying to try to stop that”

This year's COP comes as Climate change slides down the EU’s list of priorities in recent years, with concerns around the bloc's defensive and economic security taking precedence.

However, O’Hara maintains hope ahead of the conference.

“I'm always hopeful, but I think if you've got a genuine case and you put it to the decision-makers … We will be able to, I think, influence some local decisions on some local legislation and some local policies.”