Tackling Climate Breakdown

Taking decisive action to confront climate disruption will be a major challenge to every dimension of our society, but the benefits are huge – warmer homes, cleaner air, a sustainable use of the world's scarce resources, more connected communities, authentic values, and quality jobs in enterprises which can compete in a decarbonised world. The government is addressing this challenge through policy, strategies, and the Climate Action Plan, to help Ireland achieve a just transition to a low-carbon society.

Published on the 17 June 2019, the Climate Action Plan contains 183 actions, broken down into 619 individual measures, required to meet our EU 2030 targets and put Ireland on the right trajectory towards net zero emissions by 2050. Informed by the work of the Citizens’ Assembly and the All Party Committee on Climate Action, the Plan identifies the nature and scale of the challenge. It outlines the current state of play across key sectors including Electricity, Transport, Built Environment, Industry and Agriculture and charts a course towards ambitious decarbonisation targets. The Plan, which will be updated annually, also includes actions to ensure that citizens become engaged and mobilised to take climate action, while ensuring the transition we make is both sensible and fair.

The Plan has adopted significant governance arrangements, including the establishment of a Climate Action Delivery Board within the Department of the Taoiseach. The Delivery Board will ensure coordinated delivery of the actions in the plan and hold each department and public body accountable for its implementation. The Delivery Board will also discuss and review strategic projects and areas of work in the plan and publish Quarterly Progress Reports on action delivery for the government.

The Climate Action Plan commits to delivering a just transition, recognising the significant level of change required and that the burden must be as fairly distributed as possible. De-carbonising the economy presents significant challenges but also brings important opportunities to respond and create learnings on how best to deliver a just transition.

• Building upon this commitment to a just transition, the Climate Action Plan has adopted an overarching framework for policy development which takes a principles-based approach to support a just transition in Ireland. This framework comprises of four principles, enabling its application across diverse sectors;
• An integrated, structured, and evidence-based approach to identify and plan our response to just transition requirements;
• People are equipped with the right skills to be able to participate in and benefit from the future net zero economy;
• The costs are shared so that the impact is equitable and existing inequalities are not exacerbated;
• Social dialogue to ensure impacted citizens and communities are empowered and are core to the transition process

The Government of Ireland has also asked the National Economic and Social Council (NESC) to examine the transition to a low-carbon future and to provide recommendations, in order to better understand and prepare for a ‘just transition’.

The Wider Midlands is the first region in Ireland experiencing a concentrated transition away from carbon intensive activities. Jobs in peat will make way for jobs in renewable energy, bog rehabilitation and other new business opportunities. The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) has established the 2020 National Just Transition Fund to ensure that workers and the Midlands as a community are fully supported. This Fund is due to close in Q4 2024. To further assist the Midlands in the transition, the European Union and the Government of Ireland are also co-funding the EU Just Transition Fund, which provides €169 million to the region up until 2027.

National Just Transition Fund

The National Just Transition Fund is a key pillar of the Government’s plan for the Midlands region. Up to €22 million will be available for projects focusing on retraining workers and proposals to generate sustainable employment in green enterprise, while also supporting communities to transition to a low carbon economy. The funding will help businesses to create new economic opportunities, support the re-skilling of workers, push community capacity building and diversify economic activity in the region.

The objective of the Fund is to facilitate innovative projects that contribute to the economic, social and environmental sustainability of the Wider Midlands region and which have employment and enterprise potential. The Fund supports projects that take a whole-of-Midlands strategic approach and will provide funding in a manner that is complementary with other sources of public funding.

EU Just Transition Fund

The EU Just Transition Fund (EUJTF) is Pillar 1 of the European Green Deal Just Transition Mechanism. The purpose of the EUJTF is to assist the most affected territories in transitioning to a low carbon emissions economy.

The EU JTF Programme sets out the investment priorities and planned allocation of up to €169 million of investments to address the development needs identified in the Midlands Territorial Plan. The programme will focus on three priorities, namely;

• generating employment by investing in the diversification of the local economy
• supporting the restoration and rehabilitation of degraded peatlands and the regeneration and repurposing of industrial heritage assets, and
• providing former peat communities with smart and sustainable mobility options to enable them to benefit directly from the green transition

Just Transition Commission

The Just Transition Commission will support the Government in its responsibility to provide that Ireland’s transition to the National Climate Objective has regard to the requirement for a just transition to a climate neutral economy, which endeavours, in so far as practicable, to maximise employment opportunities, and to support people and communities that may be negatively affected by the transition.

The Commission will provide the Government with impartial, strategic, and evidence-based advice to inform policy planning related to a just transition across different sectors.

Published on 19 July 2017, Ireland’s National Mitigation Plan represented an initial step in transitioning Ireland to a low-carbon, climate resilient and environmentally sustainable economy by 2050. This whole-of-government approach called upon each Minister with responsibility for the largest emitting sectors (agriculture, transport, electricity and the built environment) to develop sectoral mitigation measures to tackle greenhouse gas emissions for the next and future decades.

Article 15 of the EU Regulation (EU) 2018/1999 of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Governance of the Energy Union and Climate Action requires each Member State to prepare and submit a long-term strategy with a perspective of at least 30 years by 1 January 2020. Long-term strategies should contribute to:

• fulfilling the Union's and the Member States' commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
• fulfilling the objective of the Paris Agreement of holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels
• achieving long-term greenhouse gas emission reductions and enhancements of removals by sinks in all sectors in accordance with the Union's objective

Ireland’s Long-Term Strategy will identify pathways beyond 2030, towards decarbonisation to 2050. The Strategy will be underpinned by analysis of transition options across all key sectors of the economy, including energy, buildings, transport, enterprise, waste, agriculture and land-use. It will examine the potential implications of the deployment of innovative technologies, alternative choices for consumers, investment costs, socio-economic factors and the need to support a just transition.

Informed by the Programme for a Partnership Government 2016, the National Planning Framework to 2040 and the National Development Plan 2018-2027, Project Ireland 2040 recognises that economic and social progress go hand in hand. Ireland’s ambition must go further than a focus on achieving compliance with international commitments. The national objective of transitioning to a low-carbon, climate-resilient and environmentally sustainable economy and society by 2050 must influence public capital investment choices over the coming years.

Investing in the Transition to a Low-Carbon and Climate-Resilient Society promotes how the government is committed to charting a course towards achieving a low-carbon and climate-resilient future by 2050.

The Climate Action Fund (CAF) is one of four funds established under the National Development Plan 2018-2027 as part of Project Ireland 2040. The Fund will support initiatives that contribute to the achievement of Ireland's climate and energy targets in a cost effective manner. It offers the potential for innovative interventions which, in the absence of support from the Fund, would not otherwise be developed.

The Fund will also seek to facilitate projects that contribute to other government policy priorities including:

• Supporting innovation and capacity building towards the development of climate change solutions capable of being scaled and delivering benefits beyond a once-off impact
• Generating wider socio-economic benefits such as job creation, air quality improvements, reduction in fuel poverty, bio-diversity and community resilience and development

The Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications (DECC) has responsibility for implementing the fund, which will have an allocation of at least €500 million over the period to 2027.

The National Dialogue on Climate Action (NDCA) is a forum for collaboration between citizens, communities, youth, the Government, and relevant agencies on climate change. The NDCA is a Government of Ireland initiative led by the Department of Environment, Climate and Communications with secretariat support provided by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Local authorities are at the forefront of climate action in Ireland. They help make the national climate goals and policies work at a local level to assist in the delivery of the national climate objective.

A number of work programmes are being supported by the department in collaboration with the local government sector to drive emission reductions locally.

Read more about Tackling Climate Breakdown - Local Government, Regional Offices and EU Cities Mission