An all-party Oireachtas Committee has identified 30 separate barriers to the State meeting its legally binding emissions targets for 2030, most of them due to failures in planning, infrastructure, governance and political resolve.
In a trenchantly worded report, the Joint Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy bluntly criticises the Government for insufficient effort, delayed implementation, lack of clarity, and planning deficits across the breadth of the Coalition’s climate change policies.
The first of 30 barriers identified is what the committee regards as an overreliance on “unallocated savings” in official emissions projections for each sector between 2026 and 2030. It says these are included “without any specifics as to where these savings will come from”.
It is also critical of the fact that, owing to the projections for the first carbon budget not being met, there has been a delay in reviewing the second carbon budget and sectoral emissions ceilings.
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“Further delay undermines legal certainty and sectoral planning. The committee also noted that without timely ceilings and credible delivery pathways, Ireland risks missing its binding 2030 emissions targets,” it states.
The report will have added impact by the fact that seven of the committee’s 14 members are TDs and Senators from the two Government parties. In his foreword, chairman Naoise Ó Muirí, of Fine Gael, said it was increasingly clear, despite substantial progress, that Ireland would struggle to achieve the National Climate Objective of 51 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 compared with 2018.
Energy infrastructure emerges as the single biggest structural obstacle. The report points to grid capacity and storage constraints arising from years of underinvestment and poor forward planning, compounded by the rapid expansion of data centres.
Demand from large energy users, particularly data centres, is singled out as a big barrier. The committee warns that rising electricity demand from these users is preventing renewable generation projects.
Planning and consenting delays are other bottlenecks, the report has found, citing the absence of mandatory decision timelines. This is compounded by under-resourced local authorities, where there is a shortage of environmental expertise.
Referring to the long-delayed North-South interconnector, it highlights insufficient public engagement as a contributing factor to lack of progress. The report concludes not enough has been done to explain the benefits and social value of such projects, and there have been “limited efforts to address public concerns”.
Some barriers to the development of renewable energy, particularly offshore wind energy, are ascribed to lack of detail: specifically it refers to uncertainty over the National Ports Policy; and insufficient port infrastructure, including heavy-lift capacity.
Agriculture, long the most politically sensitive sector, features prominently. The committee highlights the high cost of methane-reducing feed additives, insufficient supports for farmers to reduce cattle-finishing age, and delays in biomethane production due to prohibitive capital costs.
Forestry policy is criticised for failing to shift decisively away from monoculture coniferous trees. It notes that landowners seeking to move towards native woodland, rewetting or rewilding often face penalties rather than incentives.
The report refers to prolonged delays in big public transport projects, insufficient ambition in areas that could be delivered more quickly – such as EV buses and rural bus services – and a lack of progress on rail investment despite the publication of an all-island strategic rail review. There is, it says, no clear pathway to decarbonise the heavy goods vehicle fleet.
