Ireland will not meet its carbon budget targets for 2021 to 2025 or for 2026 to 2030, unless urgent action is taken.
It warns that unless emissions begin to fall much more rapidly, the targets set in April last year will be missed.
The council said that the pace of implementation of agreed policy by the Government "was not acceptable given the existential threat and impact of climate change on society".
It noted that that spring and summer this year had seen "a concerning series of unprecedented climate events" including the warmest June ever recorded in the country and record average sea surface temperatures in the same month.
Should temperatures continue to rise, it warned that Ireland will witness "more extreme weather events ... such as heatwaves, droughts, storms and flooding".
The council said that the Government must address areas of uncertainty in how Ireland will reduce its emissions, including by how much each sector must reduce their emissions.
For example, it said that the sectoral emissions ceiling for the 'Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry' sector still had not been set.
This evening, a spokesperson for the Department of Environment said that the Government would settle all sectoral emissions ceilings in the autumn.
The spokesperson added that "we need more action and we need to increase the urgency of delivery through the six Government Climate Action Taskforces.
"We also need to work harder to communicate with people about what is actually going on with regard to climate," she said.
Chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council Marie Donnelly warned that "clarity may arrive too late to provide the necessary signals to all sectors of their obligations over the period to 2030 and beyond".
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The council warned that "rapid and far-reaching transitions" were needed across all sectors to achieve "deep and continuous emissions reductions".
To that end it made a series of overall and sector specific recommendations.
In the energy sector, it said that it was critical to stop using coal for electricity generation as soon as possible.
It also called on the Government to conclude its onshore wind energy plans; for more help for local authorities to deliver onshore and offshore renewable energy applications; for the roll-out of electricity storage to be incentivised; and for laws to support consumers to access the data from their smart meters so they can better control their energy use.
'Era of denial' is over
Tánaiste Micheal Martin said "the era of denial has gone" in relation to climate change - but he defended Government's record in addressing the climate crisis.
Responding to the council's report, the Tánaiste said "there has been a clear "shift in public opinion" over the reality of climate change.
Mr Martin conceded that more needs to be done quickly to curb the impact of climate change.
The Tánaiste said Ireland's response to climate change will have to include ways to address increased flooding, after the Cabinet this morning agreed to provide emergency aid to businesses flooded in Donegal last weekend.
Minister for the Environment & Climate Eamon Ryan said the global heatwaves this summer are "truly scary" as the world is now seeing weather systems never witnessed before in recorded history.
He described the Climate Advisory Council's advice as "good" adding that Government has to be more ambitious and to ensure funding is prioritised for climate action initiatives.
'More urgency and ambition'
Recommendations for the transport sector included redesigning motor tax to promote energy efficient vehicles; for more investment in public transport and for a number of incentives to encourage more people to use it, including parking levies at workplaces and for park and ride schemes along major roads.
For the building sector, the council wants to see building regulations updated to increase the use of timber and lower carbon cement and concrete.
When it comes to meeting Ireland's food waste and food packaging waste targets, the council said that both public education campaigns and economic incentives were needed.
The council wants to see "more urgency and ambition" in developing district heating schemes, with large energy users like data centres to supply their excess heat to such schemes.
The council also called for a new target of all social housing to be B2 energy rated or connected to a district heating network by 2030; for home retrofitting to be scaled up with priority given to homes that use coal or peat to generate heat; and for banks to be encouraged to offer green mortgages that would support retrofitting schemes.
For farmers, it said the Government should "actively support income diversification opportunities"; should ensure sufficient supplies of greener forms of fertiliser; and should consider the roll-out of feed additives for dairy farms that reduce methane from cattle.
It also said a "streamlined process" for applications for the new forestry scheme was needed.
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Ms Donnelly said Ireland has committed to its European targets, but it has not translated those into targets in Ireland.
She said the difficulty is that the real hard and impactful policies are slow, and they are not coming out fast enough, citing district heating as one example.
"SEAI has already done a study that shows we can heat 50% of the heat in Dublin city through District Heating systems and for example we can draw much of that heat from that data centres in Dublin.
"So, a policy on District Heating and using the surplus heat for example from data centres, we're missing that policy. We are expecting it any day but it hasn't arrived yet."
An Environmental Scientist at UCD and a member of the Climate Change Advisory Council said that for the first time ever, each sector is coming to the table with plans on how they are going to do their fair share.
Dr Cara Augustenborg said Ireland needs to make sure that the impacts of climate change do not affect it in economic ways too, in addition to social and health.
She said it is a relief to see that emissions are going down, but it is still not enough, and there is also a huge issue around adapting to climate change.
"We have been ignoring adaptation largely, we are overdue a national adaptation framework. We haven't been talking about the kind of things that we need to do to adapt to climate change, particularly in areas around food production and sea level rise.
"We have done some stuff on flooding, but certainly not enough in other sectors so there is a lot of issues and of course there is economic issues too that we need to maintain economic competitiveness by showing the rest of the world that we are doing our part," Dr Augustenborg said.
