Environmental group Friends of the Earth has said that the 2025 Climate Action Plan, which has been approved by Government, does not put Ireland on a clear path to meeting its climate obligations.
The group said the plan largely ignores the twin elephants in the room: runaway data centre expansion and escalating reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly gas.
"It does not take the steps necessary to bring Ireland into line with binding climate limits and appears to allow more polluting infrastructure," Friends of the Earth climate policy campaigner Seán McLoughlin said.
However, Minister for the Environment Darragh O'Brien stated that ten years on from the original Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act the country is finally starting to see meaningful reductions in emissions in Ireland.
"In 2023, emissions reduced by 6.8%. Producing an annual update to the Climate Action Plan allows us to take stock each year to see how we're doing.
"But climate action is happening up and down the country every day, with retrofitting and more energy efficient homes, thereby reducing energy bills, with more reliable Local Link bus services connecting towns across Ireland, and more home-grown wind power - driving energy security," Minister O'Brien said.
2026 will see Government having to make 'really big decisions' - O'Gorman
Green Party leader Roderic O'Gorman has expressed concern at the lack of a Climate Action Plan for 2026.
Speaking on RTÉ’s Drivetime, the Dublin West TD said that the 2025 plan indicates that there was a 3.5% cut in emissions for the first half of 2024 which, he claimed, demonstrated the "real momentum built up in 2023".
"Under the Climate Act, the way Ireland cuts its emissions is done through carbon budgets, these are five-year cycles where we set out how much we want to cut in transport or energy or in agriculture," he said.
"2026 is really important, it's the start of the second carbon budget cycle and that is where the really big decisions have to be made."
Mr O’Gorman added: "We know we're not on track for 2030 right now, and the big changes, the big asks of various sectors will have to be set out in the 2026 Climate Action Plan, and there's no reference to that in what was published today."
He said that 2026 will need to see a step change increase in ambition and that the Government would have to make difficult decisions to achieve targets for 2030.
"Difficult decisions in terms of where we allocate the climate in nature funds, the €3.15 billion funds that the Greens got put aside.
"Do we put it to support rewetting of bogs? Do we put it to a fund to support farmers in terms of eco environment measures they take? Do we put it in public buildings, so we can reduce the emissions from schools and hospitals?"
"We need to give that clear signal, whether it's to agriculture, whether it's to small businesses, that the State is there to step up behind them and support them in the changes that we need them to make," Mr O'Gorman said.
