The programme for government by this Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Coalition may have been written this year but, from a climate perspective, it could be a document from a decade ago.
A simple comparison with the 2020 document gives a striking contrast.
Cycling and bikes were mentioned in that document almost 50 times; this time it’s down to 11 and most of them relate to tourist greenways or the bike-to-work scheme, both long-established policies.
The references to forestry, woodlands and afforestation have fallen from 50 to 11; there are absolutely no mentions of peatlands, bogs and rewetting, compared to 10 in 2020. The word “sustainable” is used 46 times in the document, compared to 75 five years ago.
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“There is a lot of aspiration but little by way of concrete details of how we are going to meet our targets,” said Professor Diarmuid Torney, director of the DCU Centre for Climate and Society.
“The programme recommits to the big-picture targets, but if you start to drill into the detail of the different areas, it is hard to see how those targets are going to be met.
“And that’s against the backdrop of EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] projections that the State is on track to get a little over halfway to the 2030 target,” he said.
The EPA report, published last week, made for stark reading. The main conclusion of the report was that, with all existing measures, Ireland is projected to achieve a reduction of up to 23 per cent in total greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, compared to a national target of 51 per cent.
[ Ireland has a dismal amount of tree cover but ‘wild’ is partly between our earsOpens in new window ]
Most sectors are on track to reduce emissions, including agriculture, which has reversed years of growing emissions. A reduction in nitrogen fertiliser use, better spreading technologies and liming programmes – to improve the overall health of soil – have contributed.
There are some worrying outliers. Total emissions from the land sector are projected to increase by up to 95 per cent, the report found.
Ireland’s forestry is reaching harvesting age and will move from being a carbon sink to being a carbon source. To counter that there will be a need for increased afforestation, water table management on agricultural organic soils and peatland rehabilitation.
But when the programme for government is scanned it is hard to see a tangible commitment to achieve that.
To the dismay of environmentalists, Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae, who wants to allow forestry on peatlands, was appointed Minister of State for Forestry. However, it’s too early in his tenure to make any conclusions on what he will, or won’t, do.
The focus has pivoted to policies that will increase emissions, such as increasing the number of data centres, investing in roads, lifting the passenger cap
The programme commits to the overall target of reducing emissions by 51 per cent by 2030 compared to 2018 levels and all the other high-level targets. They include 22 gigawatts (GW) from wind and solar energy: that’s enough to power the entire State, accommodate new data centres and generate a surplus.
But many of the targets of the 2020 document have disappeared. Unlike the last government, there is no commitment to a two to one ratio for public transport over roads, or a 20 per cent ring-fencing of the total transport capital budget to cycling and walking – some €360 million a year.
Rewetting peatlands, which stops the decomposition of peat and prevents harmful carbon emissions, is gone. Two pages on forestry in 2020 have been reduced to two paragraphs. However, it’s not a total abandonment.
The focus has pivoted to policies that will increase emissions, such as increasing the number of data centres, investing in roads, lifting the passenger cap in Dublin Airport, retaining the nitrates directive derogation, and a campaign to remove biogenic methane (emitted from ruminant livestock) from emissions calculations.
“If we were to take our commitments seriously, that would mean a significant ramping up of implementation, but also new policies and measures, and it’s hard to find those in the programme for government,” said Torney.
‘Reducing transport emissions is probably the most difficult because we have such an ingrained car dominance in our system’
Last week, the secretary general of the Department of Environment, Climate and Energy Oonagh Buckley said that given the capacity of the grid, policymakers faced a stark choice between housing and artificial intelligence/data centres. Taoiseach Micheál Martin later took issue with the comments.
“I was at the event where she said that,” said Prof Torney.
“Statistics were shared [at that event] that 50 per cent of electricity generated in the Dublin region is now being consumed by data centres. I’m not sure that the average member of the public knows that.”
The base point for the EPA projections is the performance of the last government rather than this one.
That government did manage to achieve a 7 per cent reduction in overall emissions in 2023 but it was always known the hard slog would be in the last five years.
For former Green Party leader Eamon Ryan, some of the first gestures of the new Government did not bode well for climate action, such as its decision on a LNG [liquefied natural gas] storage facility, an emphasis on data centres and what he says is the lure of the “smell of tar”.
“Reducing transport emissions is probably the most difficult because we have such an ingrained car dominance in our system,” said Ryan.
“The Bus Connects project is starting in Dublin but it really needs to accelerate. There’s starting with two but we need them to start in groups of four.
“The same in Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick. We need them at speed and at scale. I don’t see that happening.”
Ryan claims the figures show the last government in which he was minister for the environment and climate “delivered in the last five years”.
“Part of the reason is because the Greens were in government. The difficulty is that political science trumps climate science.
“What we did wasn’t [electorally] successful for us ... political science is maybe telling this Government it shouldn’t push so hard because of the [electoral] consequences.”
Minister for Environment, Climate and Energy Darragh O’Brien has acknowledged that delivery must be accelerated to meet the 2030 targets.
He points to “significant investment” such as a €2.5 billion grid-upgrade programme, new interconnectors to the UK and France and the expansion of renewables through further support schemes for offshore wind and other renewable energy sources.
The 2030 target for electric vehicles (EVs) is 945,000. At present the number is 125,000. O’Brien says after a dip the numbers are back on track with a 23 per cent leap in sales in April. Figures from the Society of the Irish Motor Industry (SIMI) on Tuesday showed this increase was sustained in May with 12,392 new EVs being registered in the first five months of the year.
“The first meeting of the new Climate Action Programme Board was held last week, involving senior officials from all the main sectors. Its remit is clear: to focus on accelerated delivery of the actions needed to close the emissions gap,” he said.
But objectively, the task facing O’Brien and the Government is daunting and will need radical policy changes if Ireland has any hope of coming close to reaching the targets.
Hannah Daly, professor in sustainable energy and energy systems modelling at University College Cork, has said that even if all the current measures were implemented the gap could still be much bigger than is commonly spoken about.
“It’s really alarming. You’re talking about an increase in emissions in agriculture and almost a doubling of emissions from land use change by 2030 with existing, actual implemented policies, rather than the ones that are just spoken about,” she said.
The programme for government contains strong language on commitments to phase out fossil fuel use, carbon budgets and the 2030 target, she said.
“But while you have this high-level commitment on paper it does not actually commit to the hard choices that are necessary,” she said.
“There’s very little on agriculture as well. What’s needed to fill that gap is just far more investment in clean energy transition and a halt in the support for the growth of carbon intensive industries.”
This means a focus on dairy farming, flights at Dublin Airport and data centres, she said.
