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A PANEL OF climate experts has warned the government that underfunding of the planning system is creating challenges for climate action.
The Climate Change Advisory Council, a panel of experts tasked with advising the government on climate change, has written to the leaders of the three coalition parties to highlight specific issues with the planning system that are “crucial to address” in 2023.
Ireland’s overarching climate targets are to reduce emissions by 51% by 2030 (compared to 2018) and to reach net-zero by 2050 to play its part in thwarting the climate crisis, which has already caused “substantial damages” and “irreversible losses” to the planet.
The Council’s letter is addressed to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Green Party Leader Eamon Ryan, with a copy also sent to Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien.
“As we approach the mid-point of the first carbon budget, the Climate Change Advisory Council remains concerned that the timelines for delivery of core measures within the Climate Action Plan are not progressing fast enough,” the letter outlines.
The Council is concerned that it will “be challenging to address the many interdependencies between climate action and planning without addressing historic and structural underfunding of the planning process”.
“Ireland’s planning service is significantly under-resourced in particular at the local authority level.”
The Council called for an urgent increase in staff numbers at local authority planning offices to help effectively deliver national climate policies.
The amount of planning applications necessary to achieve targets for renewable energy such as offshore wind, as well as essential expansions and upgrading of the electricity grid, represent a “significant challenge” for the planning system, the Council said. It is also concerned that “many of the older fleet of onshore wind farms are due to lose their planning consent before 2030″.
The Council warns in its letter that the compact growth target in the current National Planning Framework is “insufficiently ambitious” to cut emissions in the transport sector. Furthermore, “more effort” is needed to ensure across all counties to ensure that compact growth targets are met.
Additionally, the Council is concerned about the “continuing backlog of cases” awaiting a planning decision.
“It is essential that the planning process performs efficiently for all its users by providing clear and effective forward planning which supports the achievement of our climate goals and specific targets in each sector,” the letter details.
“A refined planning process must ensure coherence and clarity of approach across the different key policy areas including housing supply, climate action, protection of natural and public resources and public safety matters.”
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A PANEL OF climate experts, That’s all you need to know
@Dave Huston: Members:
Marie Donnelly is the Chairperson of the Climate Change Advisory Council, with a background in the European Commission, renewable energy advocacy, and various directorship roles.
Dr. Cara Augustenborg is an Assistant Professor in Landscape Studies and Environmental Policy, with experience in academia, government, and the NGO sector.
Professor Morgan D. Bazilian is Director of the Payne Institute and Professor of Public Policy, with previous roles at the World Bank and the United Nations.
Laura Burke is the Director General of the EPA, responsible for leading and strategically managing the organization, and also serves as the Chair of the EEA Management Board.
Professor Dr. Ottmar Edenhofer is Director and Chief Economist of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, as well as the Mercator Research Institute on Global Commons and Climate Change.
Professor John Fitzgerald is an adjunct professor in Economics and Electrical and Electronic Engineering, with previous experience as a research professor and Chairman of the CCAC.
Patricia King is the former General Secretary of ICTU, with a long history of union work and negotiating agreements.
Jillian Mahon has experience in various business sectors and currently works as an independent business and financial consultant.
Eoin Moran is the Director of Met Éireann, with responsibility for leading and strategically managing the organization, as well as roles in several international scientific and technical bodies.
Andrew Murphy is a director at Transport and Environment, focusing on reducing emissions from aviation, with previous experience in the European Parliament and the European Commission.
Sinead O’Brien is the Coordinator of the Sustainable Water Network and an expert in water policy.
Professor Frank O’Mara is the Director of Teagasc, an agricultural scientist, and sustainable livestock systems specialist.
Julie Sinnamon is a former CEO of Enterprise Ireland, with a background in senior public sector positions and various directorships.
Prof. Peter Thorne is the director of the ICARUS climate research centre at Maynooth University, with experience in leading H2020 and Copernicus Climate Change Service contracts.
@Dave Huston: So three of the signatories of the letter are heads of state bodies, the directors’ of the EPA, Met Éireann and Teagasc. Julie Sinnamon is a former CEO of a state body, Enterprise Ireland.
@David Jordan:
Millionaires who can afford electric cars and retrofit their houses, not worried about putting a dinner on the table.
@David Jordan: you must have a lot of time on your hands lad,
@Ned: I copy / pasted the bio page into an online summariser, pasted on The Journal, took all of 1 minute.
@David Jordan: it’s a list of climate obsessed elites who live in their ivory towers far removed from the rest of us.
Climate has become a tiresome subject except for the wealthy climate obsessed elites.
@Ned: There is no doubt that society is up against it with the modelling subculture.
@Carrickview: whatever that means???
@Ned:
A subculture tries to confine people to a certain way of thinking-
” The qualities of bodies which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Isaac Newton, Rules of Reasoning
Just as global warming modelling morphed into climate change modelling, Sir Isaac’s Rules of Reasoning morphed into the scientific method which gives us such monstrosities as natural selection and climate change modelling.
The Climate Change Advisory Council are just petty academics in self-aggrandising mode so leave them to their own devices. The real issue is the empirical subculture and its dominance in society through the education system.
The Journal restricts comments so hard to get people interested.
@Carrickview: Well that’s a mouthful.
@Ned:
If it is any consolation, the idea that humanity can control the weather/temperatures by doing or not doing something represents the lowest level of consideration ever reached by any society since humanity walked the planet.
You are part of that society and although not your fault, it is not helpful to see young people so helpless and uninterested in what the actual cause is in terms of a subculture.
The Climate Change Advisory Council need people like you and if that is all you can learn, then take it as a compliment.
@Carrickview: well that’s another mouthful and your idea of a compliment is kinda condescending typical of an elitist climate view.
@Carrickview: looks like Ned didn’t quite understand you.
@Ned:
I shrug, the Climate Change Advisory Council needs plenty of people like you because nothing is more silly and petty than the belief of human control of weather/temperatures.
I would be looking for a certain type of person who can go behind climate change modelling and deal with the empirical modelling subculture itself and I know they are out there. You are just not one of them and that is no insult.
Think of it as a higher standard of reasoning and perception.
@Fergal McDonagh:
It would be exciting to see younger people succeed for a change but that would take an effort and represents a challenge.
@Carrickview: Got ya,
The IPCC said it recently: unless we rapidly reduce the use of fossil fuels, starting now, we are facing the end of organised human life on Earth. Comparing the global response to Covid is instructive. The short- to medium-term implications for humanity from Covid are like a water balloon compared to the nuclear bomb of Climate Change. Why can people, especially politicians, not see this? Why does the response to Climate Change not even have a fraction of the concern, urgency and investment with which we approached the pandemic??? Wake up people!
@Kevin Farrell:
@Kevin Farrell:
Why?
Always follow the money.
The IPCC is a politically influenced body.The warnings delayed and downwatered.
Small DIY PV power plants for the facade are available for € 199.- from Lidl.
But Ireland’s planners had decided that facade mounted PV power plants need planning permission, an absurdity on the continent.They are overfunded.
Imagine the € 800.- subsidy for the electricity sellers had been invested in PV: lower bills and emissions for generations.
But that means no profits for the local mafia.
Irish planners have decided to ban …..
….. PV power at and around airports: Vienna,Delhi,Melbourne,Frankfurt …. are using now every inch to generate PV for aviation.
….. PV on facades: the rest of the world subsidieses/demands/ supports PV on facades.
Irish planners are overfunded, using tax payer’s money to destroy this world.
have your say