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

Chapter 1: Introduction Europe is leading the way in setting a course for change with the European Green Deal (EC, 2019), which resets the European Union (EU) commitment to tackling climate- and environment-related challenges. The overarching vision for Europe’s environment and society is set out in the Green Deal in the following stated aims: n To transform the EU into a fair and prosperous society, with a modern, resource-efficient and competitive economy where there are no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 and where economic growth is decoupled from resource use: this transition must be just and inclusive. n To protect, conserve and enhance the EU’s natural capital, and protect the health and well-being of citizens from environment-related risks and impacts. This is the prize, but there is much work to be done by many actors – including citizens – to get us onto a collective pathway that will get us there. And where does Ireland fit into this? The declared ambition of Ireland’s government is that Ireland will be a leader in responding to the challenges of climate change. However, the evidence shows that there is clearly a gap between aspiration and reality. Yet Ireland has much to gain from taking a leadership position, as the choice facing our country in 2020 is to be either a leader or a follower, a champion and beneficiary of change or a victim of circumstance. This is the seventh state of the environment report published by the EPA since its first report in 1996, 24 years ago. We live in a very different Ireland now, with more than 1.3 million additional people living here according to Central Statistics Office (CSO) data, an increase of 36 per cent from 1996. The Irish population is projected to continue to grow by another million people between now and 2040 (CSO, 2018); this is against a backdrop of a much more modest population increase across the EU family of 28 nations (as was) of approximately 6.5 per cent between 1995 and 2019 (Eurostat, 2019). In spite of this, Ireland remains one of the least densely populated regions in the EU, with a population density of just over half of the European average (World Bank, 2019). Ireland has also become a far wealthier country, with CSO data indicating that gross national product has increased fourfold over the last 20 years (CSO, 2004, 2020). These economic and population changes have inevitably brought about changes in our natural environment. The increasing population and increasing levels of unsustainable production and consumption place pressures on water quality, air quality, biodiversity and land, and this is largely at the root of the continuing deterioration in environmental quality since the previously published integrated assessment of Ireland’s environment in 2016. It is notable that in the recent Eurobarometer survey the two measures that are seen by Irish citizens as potentially the most effective at tackling environmental problems are (1) changing the way we consume (33%) and (2) changing the way we produce and trade (31%) (EC, 2020). This seventh state of the environment report is being published by the EPA at a time when Ireland is starting to sow the seeds of climate change and wider environmental and sustainable development leadership. It provides the up-to-date environmental, radiological protection and wider sustainable development evidence base on which such leadership can be built. People are not immune to the demands placed on our environment, as evidenced through the results of a Red C poll on public attitudes to the environment commissioned by the EPA and undertaken in 2020 (EPA, 2020b). It reported that an overwhelming majority of adults (87%) in Ireland recognise the importance of the environment as an asset to the country. Media coverage in the last 24 months in relation to climate change and biodiversity loss, including much space given to strong voices from national and international advocates, attests to this growing awareness and engagement. Ireland’s environment is also given standing through our nation’s commitments to international processes, including the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations Conventions on Climate Change, Biological Diversity, Nuclear Safety, Long- range Transboundary Air Pollution, and the Law of the Sea, as well as a raft of obligations flowing from our membership of the EU. These processes provide essential context and all act to advance the ambition of protecting and enhancing our environment and the health of everybody who depend on it. Recent international reports, including the 2020 state of environment report from the European Environment Agency (EEA, 2019) (Topic Box 1.1) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services report (IPBES, 2019), outline stark warnings and an urgency around environmental protection challenges. They speak about the need to balance development covering society, economy, transport, energy and food systems with the need to protect the environment and human wellbeing. These reports call for urgent action on the protection of the environment, and especially actions to address climate change and biodiversity loss. They advocate not just for small changes but for a systemic change in how we look after our environment. 27