Ireland to miss climate targets with renewable energy being 'cannibalised by data centres'

Warning comes amid concerns Ireland will miss its target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 51% and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

Ireland is projected to miss its 2030 energy-reduction target by a decade because data centres are driving demand, an Oireachtas committee heard.

The climate, environment and energy committee heard renewable energy made available to the country over the past decade has been “cannibalised by data centres”.

The committee heard from ActionAid Ireland, Christian Aid Ireland, Trócaire, Grow It Yourself, and Maynooth University about how Cop31 will take place amid projected warming of 1.8C — well above the 1.5C target set out in the Paris Agreement a decade ago.

Ireland will lead the EU delegation at the 31st United Nations Climate Change Conference in Antalya, Turkey, next month. The United States will not attend this year’s event after withdrawing from the Paris Agreement earlier this year.

Sinéad Loughran of Trócaire said communities and wider society in Ireland “aren’t getting the benefit of the renewable energy that has come on stream in the last 10 years because that has been cannibalised, as the Climate Change Advisory Council has said”.

Ireland must reduce its energy consumption by at least 11.7% by 2030. However, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland has said the country is off track and is projected to exceed its 2030 final energy consumption target by about 24%-30%.

Ms Loughran said Ireland could not “credibly take leadership on a fossil fuel phase-out while simultaneously pushing new fossil fuel infrastructure and ever-expanding energy demand driven through the proliferation of data centres”.

She said Ireland needed to take “immediate and fair corrective action to address the shortfall in action to 2030”.

Ms Loughran said this could be done by immediately halting plans for new fossil fuel infrastructure in Ireland and committing to no new fossil fuel infrastructure, including no LNG of any kind, and developing a schedule for an urgent, fair fossil fuel phase-out.

“Ireland and the EU must also reduce energy demand in line with domestic and EU law, as well as international climate obligations, and reject increases in energy demand,” Ms Loughran added.

The warning comes amid concerns Ireland will miss its target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 51% and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.

The committee also heard Ireland must announce new climate finance plans and pledges to ensure it meets “its fair share of international climate finance in public grant-based form”.

“These include new pledges to the Fund for Responding to Loss and Damage, which has received only a fraction of 1% of annual loss and damage finance needs,” Ms Loughran said.

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