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

Chapter 15: Environmental Performance, Policy and Implementation Overall Assessment of Progress It is clear from the trends that the scale of improvements being made is insufficient to meet long-term objectives and that, despite policy efforts, the majority of Ireland’s agreed environmental targets will not be met. Since the first edition of Ireland’s state of the environment report in 1996, there have been many examples of environmental improvement in Ireland. This is seen especially where problems have been well identified and are manageable and where regulatory and technological solutions have been readily available, such as in the areas of waste management, industrial emissions and wastewater discharges. Further improvements can be achieved through the more effective implementation of existing policies. It is clear from the trends, however, that the scale of improvements being made is insufficient to meet long-term objectives and that, despite policy efforts, the majority of Ireland’s environmental targets and commitments will not be met. For climate, biodiversity and water, most targets will not be met in the short to medium term, while for air and waste, although Ireland is meeting many of its current targets, a concerted effort will be needed to achieve the more stringent longer term targets in the future. Similar to the trend across Europe and globally (EEA, 2019a; UN, 2019), it appears that environmental policy efforts, improvements and efficiency gains in Ireland are being offset by increasing demand, driven by population and economic growth and unsustainable patterns of production and consumption, as well as climate change. These have resulted in an overall deterioration in many aspects of Ireland’s environment. The most recent state of the European environment report for 2020 (EEA, 2019a) concludes that European policies have been more effective in improving efficiency than in protecting ecosystems and human health and wellbeing, and the same appears true in Ireland. That report calls for more systemic, transformative policy frameworks to tackle climate breakdown and the biodiversity crisis and to implement sustainable development. The most recent UN GEO-6 report (UN, 2019) makes a similar call for more ambitious and effective policies, including sustainable consumption and production, greater resource efficiency and improved resource management, integrated ecosystem management, and integrated waste management and prevention. The EEA report recommends embracing the 2030 Agenda and the UN SDGs as an overarching framework for policymaking and action, as well as fully implementing existing policies, improving policy coherence and addressing current policy gaps. Building on these collective findings, with better implementation and more integrated, ambitious policies, many of these issues could be minimised and trends reversed. The suggested enablers for improving the implementation of environmental policy in plans and programmes in Ireland include more effective governance structures, measurable targets, enhanced oversight and enforcement, and greater investment. For improving integration, suggested enablers are more integrated development and land mapping, SEA, collaboration, closing policy gaps, and using new data and evidence to inform policy. The enablers for improving monitoring and public participation include monitoring and reporting on implementation and performance, tracking plans and programmes, greater public awareness and engagement in the entire process and enhanced access to justice. 415