EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Executive Summary Actions for a Cleaner Greener Environment Over the next decade, the challenges facing us are to: n Halt any further deterioration in our natural environment while supporting our economy and accommodating our growing population. n Accelerate action to decarbonise and green our economy and society, so achieving climate neutrality by 2050. n Protect ourselves against the inevitable consequences of climate disruption. n Start restoring the precious habitats and water bodies that we have lost. n Leave space for nature as part of a new approach to biodiversity protection. n Designate more of our marine area as protected areas. n Protect air quality by switching to cleaner fuels and energy for transport and heating homes. n Massively reduce our annual one million tonnes of food waste. n Foster more sustainable agricultural production and land-use systems and management. n Invest in essential water services infrastructure that protects drinking water supplies and eliminates discharges of raw sewage. n Achieve greater efficiency in our production and consumption activities when using raw materials. n Secure the improvements in our natural environment that we have made through regulation and investment. n Integrate measures to protect against radon into our built environment. n Leverage a growing public engagement with environmental issues. n Act on the highlights identified in this report. Covering thematic, sectoral and integrated areas, these highlights are identified at the end of each chapter and they outline the scale of the challenges to be tackled. These key highlights are also collated in a table at the end of this report. 21