Reflections on Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment: Volume 4
Realising the benefits of transition and transformation
Professor Patrick Brereton reflects on the fourth volume of Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment with additional responses from Professor Pilar Fernandez-Ibanez and Dr Kirstin Lemon.
As summarised at the start of Volume 4, Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment (ICCA) delivers a comprehensive, Ireland-focused, state of scientific knowledge report our understanding of climate change, its impacts on Ireland, the options to respond to the challenges it poses, and the opportunities from transitions and transformations to a climate-neutral, climate resilient and sustainable economy and society.
This final synthesis report is most important because it raises the hope of a through-line response, which Ireland must address across so many areas to meet its climate change and biodiversity loss targets that are closely interconnected. Basically, the report affirms that action needs to be scaled up and accelerated across all areas, while noting that this very detailed and comprehensive volume cannot easily be summarised. It aims to give an assessment of the national literature on the transition and transformation to a climate-neutral, climate-resilient, and sustainable future, including the benefits and opportunities which such radical transformation demands. At the same time, finding ways of combining, cross-connecting, and prioritising so many target areas continues to be challenging.
A dominant appeal across this volume asserts that much greater efforts are needed to close the gap between ambition and action on climate change mitigation and adaptation. What is characterised as transformative change is essential to enable and manage rapid and fair climate action. Both sticks (regulation) and carrots (policy) are detailed, while great emphasis is placed on the overall benefits of a transformative approach, which is necessary to keep all citizens and stakeholders on the same page. However, important caveats are highlighted, such as the fact that Ireland’s economic growth drives everything to the detriment of the environment, and the current policy direction predominantly emphasises technological transitions, rather than wider systemic transformations and shifts in development pathways – not to mention the challenge of so-called ‘vested interests’. These issues and concerns demand carefully worked out responses with more best practice examples from abroad added to the mix.
By all accounts climate justice and equity need to be constantly foregrounded, while prioritising wellbeing, as society faces into the climate crisis. The report affirms that a just transition should involve proactive policy to harness economic opportunities, aligning investment in communities and addressing training and skills needs. With regards to energy transition – recalling Bord na Móna’s pivot from peat extraction to peatlands rehabilitation and renewable energy – the report claims this case study offers lessons for the future, particularly for just transition. Several groups in the midlands would take issue with this assertion.
Being particularly interested in research gaps around effective media and communication strategies and pivoting towards more holistic long-term research and educational strategies to address the climate and biodiversity emergency, I was taken with the report’s tantalising highlights. These include affirming that if media, culture and arts are to act as the bridge between ambition and action, inspiring people to act and offering people hope for the future through solutions narratives, then it is necessary for culture to be integrated and aligned to address our climate and biodiversity crises. Furthermore, the report recognises that while STEM subject areas dominate the research and funding landscape for climate change and biodiversity loss, the arts, humanities and social science disciplines need to be embraced as essential parts of the solutions to these crises. Consequently, the report recognises that transformational changes within the research and funding landscape are necessary to support researchers to step outside their silos to work together to find better solutions.
This multi-layered synthesis fourth volume addresses so many areas. It includes well-honed chapters on transforming landscapes, transforming spatial planning, transport and the built environment, transforming livelihoods, transforming lifestyles, transforming development, economy, innovation and finance, transforming governance and policy, transforming participation and catalysing change – all of which would need extensive summaries to do justice to its findings. The report makes a good start in building an overview response to the challenges ahead, if not aways uncovering a clear roadmap for systemic change. Ireland has a long way to go and certainly this synthesis report provides a comprehensive evidence-based overview of research and findings across many areas of investigation.
Professor Patrick Brereton
Response from Professor Pilar Fernandez-Ibanez
This ICCA publication is an excellent and necessary document for Ireland, as it is an important resource for understanding climate change in an Irish context. Based on scientific evidence it proposes measures to transform our way of living and producing to mitigate and adapt to the new context. One of the key points of this report lies on the need for transformative change at all levels, i.e. changing the land-use practices, choosing sustainable methods and technologies of production to decarbonise our economy, transforming urban settlements that integrate planning and transport in a sustainable manner, etc. Moreover, this report is also a guide for researchers that aim to address the immediate needs of our society and environment, indicating the new paths towards Climate Change mitigation research. A number of research gaps are identified in clean air and fresh water, carbon capture technologies, education and urban planning, among others, which are critical to the future mitigation and adaptation to climate change and the future net-zero transition.
Response from Dr Kirstin Lemon
The blog provides a very useful summary of Volume 4 of Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment (ICCA), highlighting the main sections and their key points. Volume 4 of ICCA provides a comprehensive and Ireland-specific assessment on the benefits, opportunities and synergies associated with transitions and transformation, and perhaps most importantly, provides insights on how these can be achieved. Undoubtedly, the interwoven theme of the report is the need for broad and holistic systemic change to deliver climate action. This includes across the whole energy system, across spatial planning, built environment and transport strategies, for economic development, across food, land and nature, and throughout society as a whole.
The report highlights the benefits and opportunities these changes will bring for people and nature, all of which contribute to sustainable development, and with long-term economic and social returns. The report recognises that this systematic approach is beginning to emerge in Ireland, but stresses that better enabling conditions are required including the need for an integrated policy approach and highlighting the central role that the State has to play. The report identifies the role of research in delivering transition and transformation and the research gaps in the potential outcomes of such change, and strategies for delivering these. Finally, the report highlights the central role that research plays in delivering Ireland’s climate commitments, with the caveat that such research needs to be translated into societal impacts.
Read Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment in full.
About the authors
Professor Pat Brereton is an Environmental Communications scholar with several decades of publication around environmental media and sustainable communication. As co-director of Climate and Society Research Centre (DCU) he is actively committed to promoting environmental communications to help address all aspects of environmental sustainability and Climate Change. His 2022 student reader ‘Essential Concepts of Environmental Communication: An A-Z Reader’ strives to address a broad audience in highlighting many of the core issues across this growing area. He is committed to linking Science of Climate Change together with Social Sciences and Humanities.
Professor Pilar Fernandez-Ibanez is Professor in Environmental Engineering at University of Ulster. Previously Head of Group at Plataforma Solar de Almería of CIEMAT (Spain). Her research focuses on low-cost technologies for water purification, photochemical and advanced oxidation processes for the removal of microbiological and hazardous chemical pollutants from water. Pilar is an experienced researcher in the areas of low-cost drinking water disinfection solutions for the Global South and solar water treatment.
Dr Kirstin Lemon is a member of the senior leadership team at the Geological Survey of Northern Ireland with expertise in both past and present climate change through her PhD research on climate change in the geological past and more recently through a MSc in Climate Change and Development. This has helped her to develop a multidisciplinary understanding of climate change processes and their direct and indirect interactions with development together with an expert knowledge of international and national policy responses.
The views expressed within this blog are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employers or of the Royal Irish Academy.
About the blog series
In January 2024 the Environmental Protection Agency published Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment (ICCA), a comprehensive and authoritative assessment of the state of knowledge around all key aspects of climate change, with a central focus on Ireland. The report provides an assessment of our understanding of climate change, tying together all available lines of evidence to provide actionable information.
The Royal Irish Academy’s Climate Change and Environmental Science Committee recognises that it has a role to play in communication and advocacy for climate action in Ireland. Through a four-part blog series the committee aims to distil and offer perspectives on each of the four ICCA volumes with the goal of highlighting the importance of their content and promoting and sustaining a discussion around the topics addressed.
Read more about this blog series here.
