Climate change has been addressed too slowly and world leaders are now faced with a public, especially in Europe, which is beginning to realise that there are just two choices.

Either costly policy changes are undertaken soon, or even more costly changes will be imposed later.

It is not an accident that the recent swing to Green parties in Europe has been led by younger voters, concerned about the poisoned legacy threatened by the inaction of their elders.

This pattern is helping to create a fault-line in everyday politics which is entirely new.

Surveys are beginning to show that age alone is a good predictor of political allegiance. The most dramatic examples are in the US and in the United Kingdom.

Donald Trump’s Republican party attracts support disproportionately from older voters.

In the United Kingdom, the next prime minister will be chosen by the membership of a Conservative party increasingly the choice, to the tune of over 70%, of pensioners and retirees.

Concern about climate change is not the only driver of voter re-alignment along the age dimension

Until recently, social class was a better predictor of political allegiance in Britain, with three-quarters of working-class voters opting regularly for the Labour party, while the better-off voted Tory.

Concern about climate change is not the only driver of voter re-alignment along the age dimension.

In some countries, dysfunctional housing policies make the young feel excluded from home ownership.

In the UK, the socially conservative have, according to all the surveys and election inquests, flocked to the Tories because of Brexit and social conservatism rises with age.

Policy failure

But the climate issue looks like a one-way process – we know for sure that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising and that atmospheric concentrations will grow for many decades even if early action is taken.

Extreme climate events are increasingly blamed, rightly or wrongly, on government policy failure.

In Germany, the latest opinion polls show that the Green party, for the first time ever, enjoys the lead position in voter preferences.

Whether this translates into electoral success is impossible to foresee – the mainstream parties are already adjusting their policies and could recover support.

But a more active response to the climate threat is guaranteed and will have consequences for whoever gets into office.

The European Union has been the principal influence on climate policy in Ireland, through its system of territorial, production-based emission ceilings.

If European policy begins to change in response to rising public anxiety, there will be major impacts in Ireland

We are constantly reminded that Ireland has fallen behind relative to these ceilings and that additional measures need to be taken, including measures to reduce emissions from agricultural activity.

If European policy begins to change in response to rising public anxiety, there will be major impacts in Ireland.

Ireland’s farming and food processing industries face immediate challenges from Brexit.

Over the last fortnight, the draft EU deal with the Mercosur countries has added to the sense of alarm. But the longer-term consequences of the adaptation to climate change could be more significant than either Brexit or Mercosur.

The Brexit outcome, three years on from the referendum, remains completely uncertain.

A no-deal crash-out is more likely given the apparent indifference to economic damage of both candidates for the Tory leadership, while a two-year transition is still possible and the whole shambles could even be reversed through a second referendum.

The downside for the beef industry from the Mercosur deal is years away and there could be modifications along the way.

In recent years, the European Commission has finally begun exploring the prospects for imposing some form of indirect taxation on the aviation industry, hitherto largely untaxed

But what if there were to be a fundamental re-consideration of the basis of European policy? It is acknowledged that territorial, production-based emission targets have not been effective worldwide, not even in the European Union where there is at least some mechanism of enforcement.

The alternative is carbon taxes in some form at the consumer end. Economists have long argued that consumer-end carbon taxes, imposed initially in the richer countries with the greatest emissions but eventually worldwide, will yield the least costly path to emission reduction.

In recent years, the European Commission has finally begun exploring the prospects for imposing some form of indirect taxation on the aviation industry, hitherto largely untaxed.

Other forms of transport bear heavy indirect taxes. Aviation is not alone in escaping the gaze of the tax-gatherers – an even larger portion of consumer spending goes on food and most food items are free of consumer taxes like VAT.

Output limits

If output limits (acreage set-aside or herd quotas) are imposed on the most efficient European farmers, product prices will rise anyway, since production costs will go up and production is voluntary.

Taxes at the consumer end would have equivalent effect, but would differentially favour producers in the most efficient, including carbon-efficient, locations.

There is an accumulation of evidence that Irish production is indeed efficient, including carbon-efficient, for many food products and that there may be little to fear from a shift to consumer-end taxes. It is time to start thinking longer-term.

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