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WE HAVE BREACHED 1.5 degrees. Last year was the hottest on record. January 2025 was the hottest January on record. March 2025 was the hottest on record in Europe.
What does this mean for human health? The climate and environmental crisis is an unprecedented health crisis, through negative effects relating to extreme weather events, trauma, infectious disease, food insecurity and famine, energy poverty, displacement and air pollution, to name but a few.
In fact, almost everyone living on our planet is breathing in air that does not meet the World Health Organization (WHO) air quality standards. As a direct result of air pollution, between 1,300 to 1,700 Irish citizens die prematurely every year. Globally, this figure amounts to the loss of just shy of seven million lives. The climate crisis is already claiming lives.
The main driver of this health emergency: fossil fuels.
In spite of this knowledge, emissions worldwide from coal, oil and gas rose by almost 1% in 2024. Just 36 fossil fuel companies are responsible for half of the world’s CO2 emissions, and to add insult to injury, these companies are profiting heavily from this escalating health emergency.
Over the last 50 years, the oil and gas industry has delivered $2.8bn per day in profit. At a time when the world should be investing in renewable, sustainable energy, fossil fuel giants like BP are slashing their climate targets and cutting renewable investments, choosing instead to ramp up fossil fuel production in the pursuit of profit.
Despite some positive developments, Ireland is failing to meet greenhouse gas emission targets. Ireland may be faced with billions in climate fines, creating what would likely be “the second biggest fiscal disaster in the history of the State”.
One clear example of our failure to reduce our emissions is the transport sector. Not only are we failing to wean ourselves from our collective car addiction, but only 14% of new cars bought in Ireland in 2024 were electric, a drop from 2023.
Advertising for more fossil fuel use during a climate-health crisis is madness. In June 2024, UN chief, António Guterres, called on governments and the media to enact a ban on fossil fuel advertising, just as they have once done with tobacco. Cities such as The Hague and Edinburgh have already introduced such bans, limiting companies such as airlines and airports, fossil fuel companies, car manufacturers and cruise ship companies from advertising their products.
We need to make it easy for people to make the right choices, but how can we achieve this when everywhere we look, we are being bombarded with advertisements, influencing us to consume more and more? To go on that extra holiday. To buy the latest car. Where is the advertising warning us of the consequences of these decisions? Where is the messaging telling us to be happy with what we have?
Studies have shown that Irish people are willing to change their behaviour to reduce emissions, but often lack the means to do so. Limiting fossil fuel companies’ visibility in the public sphere is one simple way to enable people to reduce their consumption and emissions. Fossil fuel companies spend billions on advertising every year. Imagine what these resources could achieve if they were deployed to reduce emissions, not increase them.
We need to challenge social norms, break through the inertia and reclaim the narrative from the fossil fuel industry, and we need to do it now. We are out of time.
It is deeply concerning that we broke 1.5ºC of warming in 2024. Increasingly extreme weather is just one of nearly infinite consequences of a warming atmosphere, and Storm Éowyn is a prime example of the destruction and disruption that can happen from a single weather event. How can we not expect our weather to change when we have pumped close to 41.6 billion tonnes of CO2 into our atmosphere last year alone? Are we going to sit back and let this become the new normal?
Advertising for more fossil fuel consumption in 2025 is a symptom of a perilously short-sighted system, where short-term economic growth is valued above the health and stability of our people. We cannot have eternal economic growth on a finite planet.
The Institute and Faculty of Actuaries have outlined that the global economy could face a 50% loss in GDP between 2070 and 2090 without immediate carbon reductions, and The Faculty of Actuaries in the UK has warned us that “our economy may not exist at all if we do not mitigate climate change”.
2025 must be a year defined by tangible, impactful climate action. The new government must rise to the challenge. We urgently need to phase out fossil fuels, and banning their advertisement and sponsorship is a small but crucial first step.
As healthcare workers, we are calling on the Irish government to take decisive action to reduce emissions and improve human health.
Health, stability, and prosperity over short-term profit. Let’s fuel health, not harm.
Dr Johnny Collins and Dr Ola Løkken Nordrum are members of Irish Doctors for the Environment.
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