Government risking 'climate backlash' by failure to communicate with public, Dáil committee told

Implementation of climate goals could end up as problematic as the 2011 ban on turf cutting in Special Areas of Conservation, Dáil told.

Academics have warned the Government is “fuelling” conspiracies about its climate goals and is also risking a “climate backlash” by not communicating these goals to people properly.

Dr Alison Hough, who heads the Access to Justice Observatory of the Environmental Justice Network of Ireland, said implementation of goals could end up as problematic as the 2011 ban on turf cutting in Special Areas of Conservation.

She made her comments at the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action, which discussed Ireland’s National Energy and Climate Plan (NECP) and its national long-term strategy on climate.

Dr Hough said: "It's important there is genuine public participation because there hasn't been and that just fuels the conspiracy that governments are making important decisions about our future without our consent.

“Unfortunately that's true in the case of the NECP and that automatically leads to an implementation problem when you don't have public support and public buy-in.

We've seen what happens with the peat situation with the ban on turf cutting and what happens when you don't have those communities that are affected behind the measures that are being imposed.

"These plans will just be paper if they aren't consulted on in a thorough top-to-bottom social way.”

She added: “When it comes to public participation in general, it's not some new and radical thing to try to figure out how we communicate complex messages and issues and get feedback from the general public on these.”

Earlier, the committee heard the Stop Climate Chaos Coalition’s Oisín Coghlan remind politicians that Ireland has climate planning obligations under both domestic and EU law to ensure commitments to take action to address the climate crisis and make progress towards net-zero are met.

He said the NECP and the national long-term strategy on climate were “essential EU-mandated climate plans” designed to set out in detail how Ireland meets its national and international climate commitments.

Both strategies set the stage for Ireland’s medium- to long-term planning on minimising climate breakdown, he said.

However, he said: “Our analysis indicates Ireland’s approach to these two crucial planning processes has been very problematic.”

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Dr Ciara Brennan, for the Environmental Justice Network Ireland, said: “There has been no meaningful attempt to render these large complex [climate plans] intelligible for the citizens. This promotes confusion and climate backlash.”

She pointed out Ireland had been “consistently late” in meeting its EU obligations for submitting crucial climate strategy plans.

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