The warning from the Climate Change Advisory Council to the Government this week about the slow progress in key areas might be seen as nothing surprising. However, its concerns – focused this time on areas of planning and regulation– should be heeded. They are important in themselves and also part of a succession of warnings on the pace of Ireland’s response to climate change from the council, which is an independent body advising Ministers.
Meeting the climate challenge requires action across most Government departments on a whole range of fronts. It is an area from which the political debate has been distracted to some extent by the pandemic and then the cost-of-living crisis. With emissions continuing to grow, Ireland is falling further and further behind key climate goals. The question must be asked: are we serious about meeting these targets?
Marie Donnelly, who chairs the council, wrote to the three Coalition party leaders saying that half-way through the period of the first carbon budget, timelines for the delivery of key projects are not moving quickly enough. In particular, she highlighted hold-ups in the planning system, which are delaying the upgrading of the electricity infrastructure – without which Ireland’s climate targets will crash and, well, burn.
The letter also points to the need to renew planning consents on existing onshore wind farms and to progress a national spatial plan for renewable energy. It says Ireland is not doing enough to ensure patterns of future housing development are sustainable, requiring people to live in more compact zones, making fewer car journeys and served by better public transport links.
The council also underlines the urgency of providing increased resources in local authorities and across the planning system to ensure projects of all types can progress much more quickly. The same points have been made by those in the housing system. It says it is “very concerned by the continuing backlog of cases awaiting a planning decision”.
The wider problems here are twofold. First, a lot of these issues will be seen by the political system as important but not urgent. And so they do not get the level of attention which is needed to really make progress. Boxes are ticked, often a little late, but the whole process lacks momentum.
Second, it requires the kind of cross-departmental and agency action which is, by its nature, difficult, messy and complex. But it must be done.
The council is right to keep up its warnings. The latest letter follows a string of other recent commentary from it about the slow progress towards meeting Ireland’s climate goals and the increasingly difficult challenges as the State falls further and further behind.
However, the warnings will count for little unless policy action is taken. And quickly.