Ireland was the first European Union member state to declare a climate emergency formally, but its ability to lead on the issue has been called into question as it steers the EU presidency.
Jerry Mac Evilly of Friends of the Earth said slow progress on climate action at home meant Ireland had a “credibility gap” in steering negotiations at EU level.
Negotiations during the presidency will include setting emission cuts targets for 2040, a review of the Emissions Trading System (ETS) for large-scale emitters and building climate resilience.
Chairing those talks will be a country nowhere near meeting its existing 2030 emissions target, with virtually no climate resilience plans in place and no 2026 Climate Action Plan.
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“We cannot lead negotiations on the new EU 2040 climate regime if we continue trying to dodge our obligations under the agreed 2030 regime,” said Mac Evilly, who is head of policy at the environmental group.
“Furthermore, recent legislative moves like removing climate obligations from the Critical Infrastructure Bill and opening the door to LNG [liquefied natural gas] without proper parliamentary scrutiny, represent a targeted, dangerous departure from our own national climate law.”
If Ireland’s enthusiasm for climate action appears weaker now than at the time of the 2019 emergency declaration, it is not alone.
“The Green Deal atmosphere is no longer there,” Philip Nugent, head of EU and international affairs at the Department of the Environment, said of the mood in Brussels when he addressed an online gathering of environmental groups recently.
Europe’s Green Deal, agreed in 2020, set out policies aimed at making the EU the world’s first net-zero bloc by 2050.
However, Covid, war in Ukraine and the Middle East, volatile trade relations with the United States and energy crises have proved distracting since.
But Nugent’s tone was one of restrained positivity.
“The objectives that were set a number of years ago when the Green Deal was agreed, they remain valid. I think the narrative needs to change,” he said.
“We need to think about these things in a different way and not necessarily come at them purely from a sustainability lens, but link them to security and competitiveness, which I think is a very winnable argument.”
That term – competitiveness – is the catchword in just about every EU policy statement of late.
While a laudable aim – Europe must remain economically strong – campaigners query what will be sacrificed in its pursuit.
Current thinking is that competitiveness requires “simplification” for industry, meaning an easing of obligations for environmental assessment, faster permitting and streamlined reporting on waste, packaging and emissions.
The Government’s policy statement on the presidency highlights the Environmental Simplification Omnibus as a priority.
“We aim to contribute to a reduction of the administrative burden for businesses, while maintaining the EU’s ambitious objectives to protect the environment and human health,” it says.
The ETS, which imposes emission caps on large energy users, is due to undergo expansion and strengthening, but there are growing complaints about the burden it places on industry.
Ireland’s Climate Change Advisory Council is one of 12 national councils to write jointly to EU leaders, including the Irish presidency, urging them “to make every effort to preserve the integrity and credibility of the EU ETS”.
The letter said the ETS was the “cornerstone” of EU climate policy and pointed out that industrial emissions had reduced under its regulation.
“Yet ahead of this year’s review, there are calls to suspend or weaken the EU ETS as energy prices rise and concerns about European industries mount,” it said, warning against “giving in” to these calls.
The councils make sure to tick the competitiveness box, saying “a robust EU ETS and a path towards its further improvement will stimulate the sustainable investments needed to safeguard European competitiveness and ensure EU climate leadership”.
But the repeated mantra of competitiveness leaves some observers uncomfortable.
Ciara Brennan, director of the Environmental Justice Network Ireland, expressed concerned about the constant “framing of climate and nature policies as supporting growth, resilience and security rather than goals in their own right”.
But Nugent sees no contradiction between the competitiveness and climate agendas.
“We think the two things can be done at the same time,” he said.
“But it’s important if we’re going to bring the different camps along with us that we can make that argument strongly and cogently, because we are seeing from the way things are shaping up on ETS that anything that has a climate focus is being presented as environmental fundamentalism that is at odds with the drive for competitiveness.
“That’s a false argument in our view.”
The Irish Environmental Network said simplification must not mean deregulation.
Chief executive Karen Ciesielski highlighted a recent Ireland Thinks poll that found 79 per cent of people wanted the State’s presidency of the Council of the EU to work to uphold existing environmental protections or strengthen them.
“We urge the Government to use Ireland’s EU presidency to reflect what the public actually want and value,” she said.
The first of the presidency’s climate-related events is to take place this week when officials gather in Dublin for a workshop on “international climate issues”, focusing on the EU’s involvement in the UN’s annual Cop climate summit.
