Climate Law Breakthrough: States Must Act Now
The world’s top court just sent a clear message: countries have legal duties to cut emissions and protect the planet.
UN News — July 2025
The Drop in the Bucket Mentality
💡 Did you know?
Earth’s average temperature barely moved for thousands of years — never more than ±0.5 °C. But in just 100 years, we’ve jumped by over 1.2 °C. 1.5 °C is already dangerous— but if we do nothing, we could hit 2–3 °C, which would affect billions of people.
- At 1.5 °C: stronger heatwaves, wetter winters, and rising seas.
- At 2 °C: food shortages, mass migration, and loss of coral reefs.
- At 3 °C: billions of lives disrupted, deadly heat in many regions, and major cities underwater.
Click the chart to watch a short explainer 🎥
Climate Action in Ireland
Ireland ranked lowest in the EU for climate action in the Climate Change Performance Index in 2018 and 2019 — a reflection of years of policy delay and missed opportunity. By end of 2022, Irish households, businesses, and institutions were emitting 3.98 tonnes of greenhouse gases per person, the third highest figure in the EU at that time.
Source: Climate Change Performance Index
And yet, Irish people consistently rank among the most concerned about climate change in Europe. So what’s holding us back?
Studies suggest many experience a “drop in the bucket” mentality — caring deeply, but doubting that individual actions truly matter. While it is true that the biggest shifts must come from government and industry, lasting change often begins from the bottom up.
Humans are social creatures; we respond more to what others do than what they say. When a neighbour takes the bus, installs solar panels, switches to a smaller car or reduces waste, it signals what’s normal — and normal can be contagious.
In the end, fighting climate change is about reducing our energy use and making small, visible choices that protect the planet and future generations. Technology and renewable energy will help drive progress, but the real transformation begins with us — individuals whose everyday actions become a shared standard.
It is worth noting that in 2023, Irelands emissions fell by 6.8% as new climate policies enacted in 2020/2021 began to take effect.
The Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal is to keep the rise in mean global temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels , and preferably limit the increase to 1.5 °C, recognizing that this would substantially reduce the effects of climate change. Emissions should be reduced as soon as possible and reach net zero by the middle of the 21st century. To stay below 1.5 °C of global warming, emissions need to be cut by roughly 50% by 2030.
The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 was signed into law in Ireland committing us to 2030 and 2050 targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and providing the governance framework. The country is now on a legally binding path to net-zero emissions no later than 2050, and to a 51% reduction in emissions by the end of this decade (2030) compared to 2018 levels.
Source: International Energy Agency
EPA analysis shows that planned climate policies and measures, if fully implemented, could deliver up to 23 per cent emissions reduction by 2030 compared to 2018, down from the 29 per cent reduction projected last year. This widening gap to the emissions reduction target of 51 per cent in Ireland´s Climate Act is driven by updated information provided by Governmental bodies.
Source: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
In summary, Ireland will miss its climate targets and face billions of euros in fines, funded by the taxpayer. Whilst international experts say the fines are real, the current Minister for Transport has referred to them as back of the envelope stuff. Time will tell.
Source: RTE
Traditionally, we generated electricity by converting the chemical energy stored in coal, oil and natural gas (fossil fuels) into electricity in power stations and distributing this electricity around the country via the grid. Burning fossil fuels releases warming carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Electricity generated by wind turbines on wind farms and by capturing sunlight on photovoltaic receptors does not release carbon dioxide and increasingly supplement fossil fuel generated electricity nowadays. The aim is to become entirely independent of fossil fuels as soon as possible – “net zero” carbon emissions.
Some hope on the horizon
In 2025, renewable energy overtook coal as the worlds leading source of electricity in the first half of this year—a historic first, according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember.
Electricity demand is growing around the world but the growth in solar and wind was so strong it met 100% of the extra electricity demand, even helping drive a slight decline in coal and gas use.
However, Ember says the headlines mask a mixed global picture. Developing countries, especially China, led the clean energy charge but richer nations including the US and EU relied more than before on planet-warming fossil fuels for electricity generation.
This divide is likely to get more pronounced, according to a separate report from the International Energy Agency (IEA). It predicts renewables will grow much less strongly than forecast in the US as a result of the policies of President Donald Trumps administration. Coal, a major contributor to global warming, was still the worlds largest individual source of energy generation in 2024, a position it has held for more than 50 years, according to the IEA.
Storminess in Ireland — What’s Changing?
An RTE Brainstorm article examines how storms in Ireland are becoming more frequent and severe, and what that means for our climate resilience.
The New Coal
Recent budget measures lifted the cap on passenger numbers at Dublin Airport and funded a new short-haul air route to Derry — even as the long-promised vehicle-weight tax and stronger incentives for our struggling rail infrastructure were delayed. These choices raise a question: who benefits most from our transport policies?
Aviation remains among Europe’s largest and fastest-growing sources of emissions, with carriers such as Ryanair appearing on the EU’s top-ten list of polluters. Yet airline executives have been prominent voices in national debates, speaking at political conferences and writing opinion columns that shape public narratives about taxation, infrastructure, and climate regulation.
Public policy should be guided by evidence and the public good — not by the lobbying power of billion-euro corporations or their shareholders. When companies that profit from higher passenger numbers also influence decisions about airport expansion, the risk of policy capture grows.
Teachers, health-care workers, and public-sector employees — often targets of criticism in media commentary — are not the ones driving record emissions. The real challenge lies in ensuring that those who gain most from resource-intensive sectors contribute fairly to the social and environmental costs they create.
Building a fairer, greener economy means transparency in political donations and lobbying, stronger conflict-of-interest rules, and a tax system that rewards long-term sustainability over short-term gain.
Food Prices In Ireland — Does energy use have a role?
A 2024 study found that high temperatures “persistently” increase food inflation in both high- and low-income countries. They found that higher temperature during already hotter months caused the biggest increases in food inflation. This “implies short-term rises in inflation from exceptionally hot periods”, the authors write – including the intense summer of 2022. European food inflation varies each year, generally staying below 5%, but it can spike much higher. Rates soared by as much as 19% during parts of 2022 and 2023. Food and energy inflation rose sharply in 2022, in particular, for a number of other reasons, including Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and surging demand in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The study also warned that levels of extra warming projected to hit Europe by 2035 would amplify food inflation by 30-50%.
Ireland´s intergerational lawsuit
Did you know? A grandfather, a youth activist and a toddler are suing the Irish government for breaching human rights by failing to tackle the climate crisis. Read the full article from Euronews to learn how this landmark case is bringing generational voices into the fight for climate justice.
Read the Euronews article →