When I think about climate change, I don’t begin with melting glaciers or distant conferences. I think about my grandfather, who left the cement factory in Limerick in the 1970s to become a self-employed plumber. The oil shocks had pushed Ireland to diversify how we powered and heated our lives. One small consequence was a surge in demand for back boilers, solid-fuel stoves that heat radiators. Installing them kept my grandfather’s young family afloat. Change, even disruptive change, created new work and dignity.

That decade’s energy upheaval reshaped the country. Until then, as much as 70% of our electricity came from imported oil, leaving us heavily exposed to the whims of petrostates; by the late 1980s, after new policy decisions and infrastructure - Kinsale gas, Moneypoint, a push on efficiency - oil’s share had fallen below 10%. It was a whirlwind transition, full of improvisation and risk-taking during a crisis, with lessons for us now as we face climate change: policy at the right moment can unlock opportunity, but it can also sow the seeds of tomorrow’s problems if we don’t consider the unintended consequences.

The back-boiler story has a shadow, too. Burning coal, turf and wood in our homes caused smog and added to heart and lung disease, an ongoing, measurable harm. When Dublin finally banned the sale of smoky coal in 1990, an estimated 350 lives were saved each year. The poorest neighbourhoods, which had suffered most, benefited most; the State also stepped in with a fuel allowance. In other words, good climate and health policy can be both effective and fair, if we design it to be.

I’ve written before that sustainable energy is a “golden thread” running through a decent society, binding together security, opportunity and fairness. It was true in the 1970s and it’s truer now. We shouldn’t wait for a perfect moment to act: the energy crisis we have experienced since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shares the same root cause as the climate crisis, that can’t be ignored any more. The root cause is our reliance on fossil fuels.

The good news – which we so badly need in these dark days – is that unlike in the 1970s, we have sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels. While they’re not perfect – no technology is – new, clean energy technologies based on renewables are now mainstream. Solar and wind energy are now in many cases cheaper than any form of energy in history, and with the advent of cheaper and lighter batteries, and heat pumps, can be used not just for power, but to fuel cars, trucks and to heat buildings.

A new kind of denial

Where old-fashioned climate denial once tried to sow doubt about the science, a newer version tries to slow things down.

Rather than questioning the existence or source of climate change, it sows doubt and division over the solutions, spreading myths and misinformation about clean energy technologies. The new climate denial also reassures us that big, high-carbon sectors can grow and somehow help us decarbonise, if we just make them more “efficient”, or that if we don’t do it here, someone else will. This comforting story clashes with a basic, sobering fact: we’ve left action so late that cuts in absolute emissions are now the point, not marginal improvements in efficiency. Planning for that reality, and for workers and communities who depend on high-carbon activity, is the responsible path. Pretending expansion will decarbonise us is not.

How we talk about climate change matters

We often file climate change under “environment”. But as any GP can tell you, smoke in the lungs and cold in the bones are not about abstract nature: they’re about people. Framing climate action as a public-health project helps us focus on what’s at stake and what works. In public health we’ve accepted seat belts, safe food and water, vaccines, and smoking bans because they prevent harm to ourselves and to others. We learned (sometimes painfully) that information alone doesn’t change behaviour; rules, norms and the design of our surroundings matter. So do leadership and fairness. The same toolkit applies to climate.

Ireland’s workplace smoking ban two decades ago is a case study. It looked brave, and to some, risky, before it was implemented. It is now a social and medical milestone. Climate policy can feel similar: disruptive on introduction, and obvious in hindsight. The rationale then - protect workers and the vulnerable from second-hand smoke - maps well to climate: protect those least able to shield themselves now, and protect future generations most of all. Prevention is still better than cure.

What, concretely, should we do?

The good news is that we don’t need miracles to make deep cuts this decade. Ireland’s legally binding carbon budgets mean we must reduce fossil-fuel use fast, and five well-understood moves get us most of the way by 2030. Time, not technology, is the real constraint.
First, install far more wind turbines and solar panels, and the wires to carry them. Renewable electricity is the backbone of the clean energy transition. This means resourcing planning and grid connections properly, investing in storage and flexibility, and adding rooftop and utility-scale solar where it makes sense.

Second, electrify transport. EVs are now cost competitive with combustion engines, and when they’re charged at home at night or from rooftop solar, their running costs are far lower. EVs can also act as a backup power reserve for days: during Storm Eowyn, many EV owners discovered this wonderful feature and kept their lights and fridges running for days – some even kept crucial medical equipment going, thanks to their cars. Meanwhile, rolling out rapid and neighbourhood charging is needed to make EVs accessible for people who can’t plug in at home or at work, and regulating the relentless marketing of fossil-fuelled cars can help us make the move more quickly.

Third, reduce unnecessary car use. This is where local history meets local planning. Our grandparents designed towns for feet and bicycles, and railways crossed the landscape; we designed for cars. There are three times the number of cars on the road since I first went to school. We can correct course. Better, affordable public transport; safe routes to schools; park-and-ride; disincentives for commuter parking; and re-allocating some road space to buses, bikes and people—these changes improve health and access while lowering emissions.

Fourth, clean heat. Retrofitting homes, switching to heat pumps, and building district-heating networks where they fit our towns can cut bills, damp, and illness as well as emissions - particularly for older people and families living in cold, leaky houses. This is climate policy you can feel: warmer, drier rooms and better health.

Fifth, decarbonise industry. A lot of industrial energy is just heat, often produced with gas. More than half of that can be electrified, including with industrial heat pumps. Bioenergy and, for specific high-temperature processes, hydrogen can play targeted roles; efficiency and heat recovery can do more than we often assume. Cement is hard, but we need to invest in solutions there, too.

Do these five things at speed and scale and we achieve roughly 90% of the energy-system cuts required by 2030 under the Climate Action Plan. None of them is exotic, and each has international precedent.

Agriculture and our use of land make up around half of our greenhouse gas emissions, and will also need to change and adapt to rise to the challenge of lowing emissions, ensuring food security and climate resilience.

These changes will take some getting used to, and in many cases will be disruptive. The government will need to step up to pay for people who can’t afford to make the changes themselves. But the prize is huge: a secure, efficient and clean energy system that runs from the wind and sun.

Why bother? Because it makes life better

Cutting fossil-fuel dependence is not a hair-shirt exercise. It is how we make our energy secure, our air cleaner, our homes healthier, and our towns more vibrant. Imported fossil fuels are volatile and expensive; they expose us to geopolitics we can’t control. Generating energy at home and wasting less of it cushions households and businesses. And the savings aren’t just on bills: a cleaner energy system also means lower healthcare costs. Active travel, retrofits, and fair, well-planned renewables build wealth locally.

There are other benefits we don’t count well enough. Walkable streets and reliable buses free teenagers and older people alike. Retrofitted schools and community centres are more comfortable and cheaper to run. The skills we develop to build, wire and maintain this new system are portable and in demand. When we cut traffic where people live, we get a dividend in quiet, safety and time. These are not side-effects; they’re the point.

Doing it fairly, and together

Transitions are lived locally. They’re about builders and planners, bus drivers and carers, farmers, shopkeepers and students. Some livelihoods will change. That’s not a reason to stall; it’s a reason to plan. When I once asked the owner of our local petrol station about how EVs may threaten their business, he shrugged: “We’ll adapt. My father was a farrier.” We’ve adapted before. We can do it again, if we match ambition with fairness, support and honest timelines.

Fairness also strengthens consent. The smoky-coal ban saved lives because government paired regulation with support for those on low incomes. The same balance of carrots and sticks must run through climate policy: who pays and who benefits; how we design grants so those who need them most can actually use them; where we put infrastructure, and who gets the upside. Done well, climate action can narrow inequalities rather than widen them.

What history asks of us now

Look back across two centuries of climate understanding, from Joseph Fourier’s 19th-century insight that the atmosphere keeps Earth warm, to the Paris Agreement’s promise to limit warming, there’s a consistent theme: when we recognise a threat, we organise, we learn, and we act. We’ve known for decades that late action forces harder choices later. Carbon budgets capture that simple arithmetic: what we don’t cut now we must somehow make up for later, with greater damage and more expensive remedies.

There is no need to gild this with drama. The task is big, but the steps are clear. We build the clean electricity system and the grid to match it. We help people drive less and, when they drive, drive electric. We make cold homes warm and clean. We modernise how industry makes heat and materials. And we decide, as neighbours, that cleaner air, quieter streets, and money kept in the local economy are worth some disruption. Above all, a safe and stable climate is the ultimate prize. None of this requires us to be perfect; it asks us to be practical and to start.

If a local history society in fifty years leafs through our minutes and newspaper columns, what will they say about the 2020s? That we knew, that we waited, that we argued about timing? Or that, learning from the back-boiler years and the smoking ban, we combined courage with care, and picked the obvious, available tools off the shelf and used them well?

We can choose to be the generation that future local historians thank for leaving them warmer rooms, cleaner air, and a town designed for people again. The golden thread is there to be picked up.

This piece draws on my previous columns and briefing work on energy transitions, climate policy and public health, which are available at the Irish Times – “At a Time of Climate Crisis” – and my website, www.hannahdaly.ie