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Government to send long-term climate strategy to EU this week - three years late

EU countries were told in 2018 to submit a 30-year strategy on climate action by 1 January 2020.

THE GOVERNMENT PLANS to submit a long-term climate strategy to the European Commission this week – three years late.

In 2018, EU states were given 13 months to develop a 30-year strategy with their plans to tackle the climate crisis and submit them to the European Commission by 1 January 2020. Years later, Ireland is one of only a handful of countries that has not yet submitted its strategy.

Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan brought the strategy to a meeting of Cabinet today where he received approval to publish the file on Thursday and submit it to the European Commission.

However, the government also intends to prepare an additional, updated version of the strategy that will not reach the EU until at least the end of the year.

In February, the Department of Environment told The Journal that it planned to submit a draft to the Commission by the end of March.

In September, the European Commission opened formal infringement proceedings against Ireland and the other three member states due to delays in submitting the strategies.

The Department of Environment prepared a draft version of the strategy in 2019 but its submission was “paused” due to an increase in climate ambition in the subsequent Programme for Government, according to a government statement.

The Programme for Government was developed after the 2020 general election during coalition negotiations between Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil and the Green Party, which took power in June of that year.

A public consultation was also held in 2019 which will be submitted to the EU Commission along with the strategy.

The government statement said that the Department of Environment considers it “prudent” to carry out further public consultation now following the Climate Act that passed in 2021.

“For this reason, the strategy that will be submitted imminently to the Commission will be used as the basis for launching a public consultation to prepare an updated strategy by the end of 2023,” it said.

“The updated Strategy will then be published in line with the provisions set out by our national, and EU legislation.”

The strategy will identify “pathways for a whole-of-society transformation, beyond 2030, towards decarbonisation to 2050″.

“Disruptions in certain sectors of the economy will be unavoidable but the transition to a climate neutral economy is projected to be a core driver of economic development over the next three decades and will help to reduce the overall operating expenditure requirements of the economy, creating a net cost-benefit.”

The delay came despite the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) warning in 2021 that it was concerned, in the absence of the strategy, about the potential for “higher cost implications of delay in long-term action”.

The European Commission has outlined that “stable long-term strategies are crucial to help achieve the economic transformation needed and broader sustainable development goals”.

They are also crucial, according to the Commission, to moving “towards the long-term goal set by the Paris Agreement – holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C”.

Cabinet also approved the publication of Ireland’s first National Clean Air Strategy, which is set to be released tomorrow.

The strategy will provide a policy framework to identify and promote measures to reduce air pollution.

A public consultation on the strategy was first held back in 2017 but was not followed by the publication of the strategy in the subsequent years. A second consultation was then held in March 2022.

Key priorities will be “to ensure continuous improvements in air quality across the country” and “to guarantee the integration of clean air considerations into policy development across Government”.

The strategy will also be used “to increase the evidence-base that will help us to continue to evolve our understanding of the sources of pollution in order to address them more effectively; to enhance regulation and improve the effectiveness of our enforcement systems; and to promote and increase awareness of the importance of clean air”.

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    Mute Brian Boru
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    Apr 25th 2023, 8:27 PM

    The crazy green strategy needs to be put to a referendum. The Greens are on a handful of percent in the polls. I’m convinced the Irish don’t want to destroy the country for this nonsense.

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    Mute KilkennyProud
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:37 PM

    @Brian Boru: So what you are saying that the Green Party are having great success in implementing their policies.

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    Mute Paulco
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    Apr 25th 2023, 8:36 PM

    The actual “strategy” will be to do what Davos tells the Govt to do.

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    Mute JC O'Connachain
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:43 PM

    @Paulco: If that was true they wouldn’t have been waiting 3 years past the deadline

    29
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    Mute Ned
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    Apr 25th 2023, 11:54 PM

    Won’t make any climate difference anyway,
    Only difference is it is and will take more out of the consumers pockets .

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    Mute west awake
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    Apr 25th 2023, 8:51 PM

    Our lovely countryside has been destroyed by these monstrosities, and when the wind doesn’t blow on a freezing January day they are absolutely useless.

    127
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    Mute Emmet Murphy
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    Apr 25th 2023, 10:08 PM

    @west awake: Too much, can spoil a look and beauty. But this is about alternatives to burning fossil fuels and polluting the planet or are you a denier?

    38
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    Mute west awake
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    Apr 25th 2023, 11:48 PM

    @Emmet Murphy: Go tell the Germans, Americans, Russians, Chinese etc.
    We could build turbines on every acre of Ireland, and it wouldn’t make the slightest bit of difference to global warming

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    Mute Emmet Murphy
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    Apr 26th 2023, 10:53 AM

    @west awake: So do nothing, just carry on as normal and pray?

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    Mute west awake
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    Apr 26th 2023, 6:34 PM

    @Emmet Murphy: Makes no difference either way.

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    Mute Paulco
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    Apr 26th 2023, 3:17 AM

    Plant trees… nah, no money to be made with that idea….

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    Mute Diarmuid Hunt
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    Apr 26th 2023, 9:06 AM

    @Paulco: We are planting trees and there is money to be made by selling carbon sequestration…

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    Mute Proinnsias O'Dubhlaoich
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    Apr 26th 2023, 6:08 AM

    If you want temperature / climate change data from scientists rather than a school girl puppet then maybe listen to Tony Heller or Dr Willie Soon etc. Twenty years ago they told us the Maldives would be under water by now and the Great Barrier Reef would be completely dead, both have not happened. Notice also how the EU are not too concerned about massive amounts of greenhouse gases being emitted during the prolonged unnecessary war in Ukraine or for that matter the tens of thousands of people dying there. Ireland is going to turned into one big wind and solar farm, our fishing fleet destroyed and our cattle production reduced in the coming years on the orders of unelected foreigners and our puppet politicians here will assist in every way possible. Utter madness.

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    Mute Thomas Sheridan
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    Apr 26th 2023, 10:06 AM

    @Proinnsias O’Dubhlaoich: what do you expect the EU to do about the war in Ukraine – put a carbon tax on bombs?

    7
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    Mute Emmet Murphy
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    Apr 26th 2023, 10:54 AM

    @Proinnsias O’Dubhlaoich: They probably, got their timing wrong and be patient.

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    Mute Stephen Gill
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    Apr 26th 2023, 12:57 PM

    @Proinnsias O’Dubhlaoich: Tony Heller is a sound engineer who repeats silly nonsense produced by right wing think tanks. Willie Soon was debunked years ago by scientists and is funded by the oil industry. So your bogus sources are worse than schoolgirl puppets. What you are saying is that you don’t like the scientific facts and take solace from paid stoolies who have no qualifications or expertise in the subject.

    The Maldives are still under threat.
    With more than 80 percent of its 1,190 coral islands standing less than 1 meter above sea level, the Maldives has the lowest terrain of any country in the world. This makes the archipelago in the Indian Ocean particularly vulnerable to sea level rise.

    “With global sea level rising 3 to 4 millimeters per year, and that rate expected to rise in coming decades, some analysts anticipate a grim future for the Maldives and other low-lying islands. One study concluded that low-lying islands could become uninhabitable by 2050 as wave-driven flooding becomes more common and freshwater becomes limited. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changes anticipates sea level could rise by about half a meter by 2100 even if greenhouse gas emissions are sharply reduced or rise up to 1 meter if greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase strongly.”

    Barrier Reef March 2022
    “After conducting aerial surveys of more than 750 reefs in the marine park, the Australian government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority confirmed in late March that a mass bleaching event had occurred. It was the sixth such widespread bleaching event of the reef since 1998.

    “This assessment of bleaching at multiple reefs in all four management areas confirms a mass coral bleaching event on the reef, the fourth since 2016″

    both pieces Source NASA.

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    Mute Dave Hammond
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    Apr 26th 2023, 4:14 AM

    Well since the journal closed comments on the delays to modular homes I am posting it here on the basis that it’s my opinion on unacceptable delays by government in every area….. there is simply no excuse for the Irish people to have to listen to daily bombardment about the climate crisis / have to pay some of the highest taxes on our pay in the developed world only to see them flittered away on inefficient government initiatives …….the Irish people are the ones paying for the 700 modular homes promised to house ukraines and they have been making announcements for over a year about how fast they can be delivered and have delivered one single unit build out of 700 / these delays in all manner of projects should be beyond excusable / when can we expect some accountability

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    Mute david huston
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:39 PM

    Pro Green stupidity will bring a cold dark future for our children

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    Mute Eolain Downey
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    Apr 26th 2023, 1:37 AM

    Genuinely upsetting to see so many anti-climate action comments here. We are one of the most wealthy countries in the world with a tiny population and we punch well above our weight in carbon emissions (not a good thing). We have as much responsibility to get our ducks in order as any other country, and even moreso given our privileged position. We have to be leaders in justice-based climate action and consider far less privileged countries which are experiencing the consequences of climate change as we speak… If you’re not persuaded then lest you not forget, we are an Island too.

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    Mute Carrickview
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    Apr 26th 2023, 7:56 AM

    @Eolain Downey:

    When academic convictions are allied with political imperatives, bad things happen-

    “I could show fight on natural selection having done and doing more for the progress of civilization than you seem inclined to admit. Remember what risk the nations of Europe ran, not so many centuries ago of being overwhelmed by the Turks, and how ridiculous such an idea now is! The more civilised so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turkish hollow in the struggle for existence. Looking to the world at no very distant date, what an endless number of the lower races will have been eliminated by the higher civilized races throughout the world.” Charles Darwin

    “Truly, this earth is a trophy cup for the industrious man. And this rightly so, in the service of natural selection. He who does not possess the force to secure his Lebensraum in this world, and, if necessary, to enlarge it, does not deserve to possess the necessities of life. He must step aside and allow stronger peoples to pass him by.”
    Adolf Hitler

    To spare younger people from a disruptive subculture is an unpleasant experience as it often means being necessarily repetitive so that they snap out of zombie-like reactions once the term ‘climate’ is brought up.

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    Mute Tony Murphy
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    Apr 26th 2023, 10:19 AM

    @Carrickview: “When academic convictions are allied with political imperatives, bad things happen”

    Excellent. You could have added in colossal financial incentives (such as the carbon credit wheeze) as well.

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    Mute Carrickview
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:34 PM

    “Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Isaac Newton

    The empirical modelling subculture all comes down to that where climate change modelling is just another symptom.

    Whatever hysterics go on with dire conclusions and computer-simulated predictions passed off as facts, humanity is dealing with petty academics who have no regard for planetary dynamics and the relationship to Earth sciences.

    Would love to help but reached a dead-end here.

    30
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    Mute john mac
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    Apr 26th 2023, 8:23 AM

    I live abroad came back to my beloved cork city was shocked by plastic bollards and cycle lanes everywhere the city looks dirty it has been destroyed by the green party not elected by the people, I think dublin is the same ,these and previous governments have destroyed ireland

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    Mute Tony Murphy
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    Apr 26th 2023, 10:20 AM

    @john mac: Priming us for the 15-minute city.

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    Mute Maurice Glennon
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    Apr 26th 2023, 11:09 AM

    @Tony Murphy: would love a 15 minute City. All it means is that most daily necessities and services, such as work, shopping, education, healthcare, and leisure can be easily reached by a 15-minute walk or bike ride of your home. It’s that simple, What’s so horrible about that?

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    Mute Keith Twamley
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:08 PM

    In fairness, it probably took a while to convince J K Rowling to write them

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    Mute Keith Twamley
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    Apr 25th 2023, 9:08 PM

    In fairness, it probably took a while to convince JK Rowling to write them

    8
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    Mute Monty Carlow
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    Apr 26th 2023, 12:42 PM

    Where are all the insects gone, bees butterflies etc,

    6
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