A NETWORK OF climate activists are seeking answers to why the 2026 Climate Action Plan has not yet been published – despite 2026 being nearly over.

Ireland’s annual climate plan has traditionally been published at the start of a calendar year, or in the months beforehand, but the plan for 2026 is yet to emerge.

Stop Climate Chaos, a coalition of campaign groups, is urging Minister for Climate Darragh O’Brien to publish the plan as Ireland struggles to keep its greenhouse gas emissions in check.

“A disregard for its own climate law and a failure to publish a new climate action plan has left this government looking like a boat without a rudder when it comes to climate action,” said Seán McLoughlin, Christian Aid Ireland’s policy and advocacy officer.

“It’s not good enough to just shrug your shoulders about missing climate targets when lives and livelihoods are on the line, both at home and abroad,” McLoughlin said.

In May of this year, O’Brien said that he would be bringing the 2026 Climate Action Plan to Cabinet in “the coming weeks”.

He said it would be a “slimmed down” plan that “people can actually read”, hitting back against criticism from Labour leader Ivana Bacik, who lamented the delays to the plan and accused the government of not taking climate change seriously.

Lagging behind

The Stop Climate Chaos coalition has expressed similar concerns today, pointing to the slow rate of progress in reducing Ireland’s emissions.

In 2023, the country’s emissions fell by 3%, followed by a decrease of just 1.9% year-on-year in 2024, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Projections suggest that Ireland is only on track to reduce emissions by 25% by 2030 (compared with the baseline 2018 figures) – far short of the national target of 51%.

McLoughlin said the government needs to “get their skates on if we are to have any chance of closing the emissions gap”.

The coalition, which includes charities like Action Aid, Concern Worldwide and Friends of the Earth, has criticised the government’s decision to approve the development of a state-owned LNG terminal, accusing it of being a move that is “counter to sense and science” in the midst of a climate crisis.

It is calling on the government to phase out fossil fuel expansion and to not permit the importing of fracked gas to Ireland, and to impose a moratorium on new data centres connecting to the grid until the country’s electricity system has been fully decarbonised.

The group is also calling for a permanent windfall tax to be introduced on excess profits of fossil fuel companies that operate in Ireland and to use those funds to support the transition to renewable energy sources.