The international ranking of Ireland’s climate performance has improved substantially over the past 12 months, according to a new report published at the COP29 climate conference taking place in Baku in Azerbaijan.
The analysis covers 63 countries which account for 90% of global greenhouse emissions.
Ireland ranks 29th, having climbed 14 places since last year to achieve its best ever result.
It means that, for the first time, the Republic is now considered to be a medium performer on climate action.
Ireland’s ranking was helped by a significant increase in renewable energy capacity along with improvements in energy use, climate policy and laws.
However, its performance on greenhouse gas emissions is considered to be low.
For the fourth year in a row, Denmark topped the index.
It is followed, in order, by The Netherlands, the UK, the Philippines and Morocco.
The United States is ranked 57th in the international climate performance index.
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Political ‘divisions’ a factor – Ryan
The report said that divisions had emerged in the outgoing coalition government, and pointed to a clear unwillingness to take effective action on climate change ahead of the General Election.
Speaking in Baku, the Minister for the Environment, Eamon Ryan, pointed the finger at Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, accusing his coalition partners of resisting measures to reduce traffic congestion and transport emissions.
The ranking was produced by Germanwatch, an environmental organisation that, for two decades, has monitored and ranked various countries’ efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and achieve the goal established in the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement.
This is to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels” and pursue efforts “to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.”
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Germanwatch officials have expressed concern that the US could slip further down the rankings following the election of Donald Trump as President.
Mr Trump has said he will pull the US out of the Paris Climate Agreement.
The lowest four rankings in the index are Russia, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are all big oil producing nations and considered to be climate laggards.
‘Clear unwillingness to take action’
The report noted Ireland’s introduction of legally binding five-year carbon budgets as well as sectoral emissions ceilings, along with the completion of a legislative framework for annually revised climate action plans.
Despite these improvements, it found that climate policy implementation remains problematic.
Recent Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) projections indicate that, while there was a considerable reduction in greenhouse gas emission in Ireland in 2023, a lack of substantial progress makes it unlikely the country will meet its second carbon budget for the period from 2026 – 2030.
Germanwatch said that divisions emerged in the outgoing coalition government and pointed to a clear unwillingness to take effective action at this stage of the electrical cycle.
Accepting the findings, Eamon Ryan said that they are a clear warning signal that, when the going gets tough, the “so-called tough” just cave, resulting in political science trumping climate science. He said that this would have huge consequences for the Irish people.
On the positive side, the report notes that Ireland’s solar power capacity has doubled in just one year thanks to a surge in utility-scale solar projects, as well as a significant rise in small and domestic rooftop solar installations.
Minister Ryan declared that Ireland has not just jumped, but “vaulted” 14 places in this year’s rankings, and is “leaving our climate laggard tag behind”.
He welcomed the acknowledgement of the progress made on solar energy, which he said was the result of “a rooftop revolution”.
“Our transition to renewables is well underway, but as the report points out, we must continue to wean ourselves off our reliance on fossil fuels. We need to go further and faster.”
Eamon Ryan said that only the Greens are fully committed to delivering on climate.
The report also pointed to an urgent need to create new port infrastructure to facilitate the deployment of offshore wind facilities, and to strengthen the electricity grid to enable heating and transport electrification at scale.
It cautions that Ireland remains greatly dependent on fossil fuels and called for an immediate reinstatement of a permanent ban on LNG terminals, for a moratorium on new data centres and a revision of the legal mandates for government agencies in line with climate change commitments.
At the international level, the report says Ireland is a strong performer in climate finance, particularly in relation to the new Loss and Damage Fund agreed at COP28 in Dubai last year.
It concludes that, although the overall amount of climate finance provided by Ireland is still low, the quality of the aid is considered to be excellent, because it is based on grants rather than loans.
To read the report in full, it is available here.
Some still advocating for fossil fuels
OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais told the COP29 climate summit that crude oil and natural gas were a gift from God, and that global warming talks should focus on cutting emissions not picking energy sources.
The comments came as world governments seeking to limit the damage from global warming gathered in the Caspian Sea nation of Azerbaijan to hash out a sweeping finance deal meant to help countries cut emissions and adapt to the changing climate.
“They are indeed a gift of God,” Mr Al Ghais, a veteran Kuwaiti oil executive, said about oil and gas in a speech at the conference.
“They impact how we produce and package and transport food and how we undertake medical research, manufacture and distribute medical supplies. I could go on forever”.
His words echoed those of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev, who used his opening address to the summit last week to hit back at Western critics of his country’s oil and gas industry, and who also described those resources as a gift from God.
Mr Al Ghais said that world governments, which had agreed to limit planetary warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels at the 2015 summit in Paris, could pursue their climate targets without shunning petroleum.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) has said that technologies like carbon capture can tackle the climate impact of burning fossil fuels.
Mohamed Hamel, Secretary General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum, a grouping of gas exporter nations, also spoke out in support of fossil fuels.
“As the world’s population grows, the economy expands, and human living conditions improve, the world will need more natural gas, not less,” he said.
He added that he hoped that a COP29 deal on international climate finance would allow support for natural gas projects to help countries transition away from dirtier fuels like coal.
“The outcome of COP29 should facilitate financing for natural gas projects and scaling up cleaner technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage,” he said.
“This is crucial for ensuring just inclusive and orderly energy transitions that leave no one behind.”
Climate scientists say the world is now likely to cross the 1.5C threshold – beyond which catastrophic climate impacts could occur – in the early 2030s, if not before.
The world is currently on track for as much as 3.1C of warming by the end of this century, according to the 2024 UN Emissions Gap report.
Additional reporting by Reuters.