Friends of the Earth Ireland has issued a strong criticism of the Irish government’s new Climate Action Plan, stating that it falls short of putting the country ‘on a clear path to meeting climate obligations’.
It said that the action plan, which has been approved by cabinet, does little to prevent reliance on fossil fuels, or bring Ireland into line with binding pollution limits.
The plan “largely ignores the twin elephants in the room: runaway data centre expansion and escalating reliance on fossil fuel infrastructure, particularly gas”, commented Seán McLoughlin, climate policy campaigner for Friends of the Earth Ireland. “It does not take the steps necessary to bring Ireland into line with binding climate limits and appears to allow more polluting infrastructure.”
The role of data centres
McLoughlin pointed to the continued expansion of data centres as having a key impact on Ireland’s carbon budgets, straining the electricity grid, inflating household energy bills, and locking Ireland into higher emissions.
“The government should halt the approval of additional data centres until an appropriate policy regime is introduced to address the significant threats they pose to our climate and energy security,” McLoughlin added.
“The Plan also states that the upcoming data centre connection policy will decarbonise ‘new demand in line with climate targets’. Yet the energy regulator in its recent proposed decision on this very policy has contended that the Climate Act does not provide it with “a sufficient legal basis” to mandate emissions reductions.”
Read more: Global data centre electricity usage to double by 2030
LNG terminal
Friends of the Earth also took aim at the Government’s decision to approve a state-owned liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal, a move that the group says directly contradicts the country’s climate targets.
“The new Plan does not put forward a clear trajectory to prevent further reliance on expensive polluting gas, oil and coal,” added Jerry Mac Evilly, campaigns director, Friends of the Earth. “Indeed, the first substantive energy decision of this government was to greenlight plans for a costly state-owned Liquefied Natural Gas terminal and to leave the door open to a dangerous commercial development.”
Announcing the Climate Action Plan on 15 April, the Irish government said that it will lead the ‘transition to a climate resilient, biodiversity rich, environmentally sustainable and climate neutral economy’.
The plan proposes a roadmap to halve Ireland’s emissions by 2030, and achieve climate neutrality no later than 2050. Read more here and here.
