Ireland’s 2025 environmental review — and a look ahead to 2026

Ireland did not experience a single defining climate disaster in 2025... climate change in Ireland now operates less as a headline-grabbing event and more as a persistent context

There has been a notable shift in how nature is discussed. Peatlands, wetlands, hedgerows and rivers are increasingly recognised not as marginal spaces, but as critical infrastructure that are storing carbon, regulating water and supporting biodiversity.

Looking back on Ireland’s environmental record in 2025, it is tempting to frame the year as one of contradiction. Progress and stagnation coexisted; ambition ran ahead of delivery; evidence accumulated faster than action. Yet contradiction is perhaps the wrong word...

What 2025 really offered was clarity. Across climate, water quality, biodiversity and land use, the signals were consistent and increasingly difficult to soften. Ireland knows where its environmental pressures lie. The challenge is no longer diagnosis, but response.