Ireland ignoring its climate action obligations, environmental group claims

Ireland wants to play a leading role in climate policy at global level yet is among a handful of countries that have repeatedly failed to submit a long-term strategy (LTS) on climate action to the European Commission, according to Friends of the Earth (FoE).

The Government’s climate credentials “are on the line having been recently issued a formal notice for failing to comply with a key element of EU climate law,” FoE, an environmental advocacy group, said in advance of UN climate talks — known as Cop27 — in Egypt next month.

It is more than two and half years late in providing this strategy, it added. The LTS is a requirement under EU law and must set out the steps Ireland will take to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 at the latest.

It must also include expected emissions reductions across sectors in line with national plans, and provide information on investment, research, socio-economic effects, health impacts and environmental protection.

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“It is an important mechanism in ensuring the EU achieves its collective net-zero goal. It allows for checks and balances to ensure that Ireland makes an appropriate and fair contribution to meeting that goal. These strategies have already been produced by 23 other Member States. Only Ireland, Poland, Romania and Bulgaria have failed to come forward,” FoE said.

The Commission previously highlighted Ireland’s failure to provide this strategy and last week issued a formal notice giving the Government a two-month deadline to produce it. If the Government continues to ignore the Commission’s directions, it confirmed it may ultimately refer Ireland to the European Court of Justice.

FoE climate policy coordinator Dr Bríd Walsh said: “Attending Cop27 without having submitted the strategy is like going to school without doing your homework. Ignoring EU obligations is no way to move from climate laggard to leader and flies in the face of Ireland’s calls to other nations to deliver on their climate commitments.”

She added: “To even play a credible role at the upcoming Cop27 meeting in Egypt the Government must deliver on its EU commitments. The LTS must set out how Ireland will meet the target of net zero by 2050, also keeping in mind 2050 is the deadline with Ireland expected to make even earlier progress as a leading member state,” she added.

The strategy, together with the forthcoming new national climate action plan, “needs to set out the big and bold actions needed right now to get to net zero as soon as possible so Ireland does its fair share, cuts polluting emissions and protects vulnerable communities”, Dr Walsh said.

The European Commission in the same notice also called on Ireland to halt peat-cutting activities in Natura 2000 sites and to restore them.

Member states were due to submit a LTS by January 1st 2020, while it must be consistent with their integrated national energy and climate plans to 2030 while incorporating the EU target of reducing net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55 per cent by 2030, compared to 1990 levels.

The Climate Act matches that figure with a target of 51 per cent based on a 2018 baseline. Climate scientist Prof Kevin Anderson said during Oireachtas Climate Committee hearings on carbon budgets that under a globally fair and equitable system of emission cuts Ireland would be required to reach net zero by about 2030 to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.