AN ENVIRONMENTAL GROUP is bringing the Irish government to the High Court, arguing that it has failed to clearly outline a plan for how it will keep Ireland’s emissions within legally-binding carbon budgets.

Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), represented by Community Law and Mediation, is challenging the government’s 2023 Climate Action Plan in the High Court this week.

FIE is arguing that the 2023 Climate Action Plan 2023 and its Annex of Actions fail to demonstrate with sufficient specificity how emissions will fall in line with Ireland’s carbon budgets.

It says this amounts to a breach of the government’s legal obligations under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015.

The carbon budgets, which were signed off in 2022 are are legally binding, set out the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that Ireland may produce over several five-year periods with an objective of putting Ireland on track to climate neutrality by 2050.

Ireland’s Climate Action Plan and an associated Annex of Actions is published annually and is supposed to set out a roadmap for Ireland staying within that period’s carbon budget. 

However, FIE is set to argue in the High Court that the 2023 Climate Action Plan and Annex of Actions does not comply with several requirements in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015.

It is arguing that the State has not “ensured” that the plan is “consistent” with the carbon budget programme, contrary to the requirements of the 2015 Act.

Additionally, it does it contain a roadmap of actions that include the sector specific actions “that are required to comply with the carbon budget and sectoral emissions ceiling for the period to which the plan relates”or “that are required to address any failure or projected failure, to comply with the carbon budget and sectoral emissions ceiling for the period to which the plan relates”.

The Annex of Actions also does not specify measures that will “in the Minister’s
opinion, will be required for the first budget period in a carbon budget programme”. 

FIE previously took a successful case against the government, arguing that the 2017 National Mitigation Plan breached the Climate Act because it did not clearly specify how the government would achieve its 2050 objectives, with the Supreme Court ruling in its favour in 2020.

Last May, the Environmental Protection Agency said that Ireland’s emissions are on track to overshoot national and EU climate targets and that the country’s planned climate policies and measures, even if fully implemented, are insufficient to achieve the ambition in the Climate Act.

The EPA expects there will be a significant overshoot of between 17 and 27% of the first two carbon budgets (covering 2021 to 2030).

In December, the Climate Change Advisory Council stated that Ireland “has not risen to meet its climate change challenges and is currently set to miss its agreed carbon budget to 2030…If we do not act the Council has said that there will be profound costs to the Irish economy and to the people of Ireland”.