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

Chapter 16: Conclusions NUMBER CHAPTER HIGHLIGHTS Agriculture (2) Economic growth in the agri-food sector in recent years is happening at the expense of the environment, as evidenced by trends in water quality, emissions and biodiversity all going in the wrong direction. Business-as-usual scenarios will not reverse these trends. New measures must go beyond improving efficiencies and focus on reducing total emissions by breaking the link between animal numbers, fertiliser use and deteriorating water quality. Measures are also needed to address new EU strategies including the Farm to Fork Strategy, which sets ambitious but sustainable targets to ‘transform the EU’s food system’. Agriculture (3) The adoption of a more holistic farm and catchment-level approach, encompassing all environmental pressures, will be fundamental to progress towards more environmentally sustainable and carbon-neutral food production. Health and wellbeing (1) A good-quality, well-protected environment has significant health and wellbeing benefits; research has shown that access to clean green and blue spaces in our environment is good for us. The provision of health-promoting environments in urban planning is central to Ireland’s transition to more compact and urban living. Health and wellbeing (2) Greater individual action needs to be taken to proactively tackle avoidable health consequences linked to the environment. Actions include radon testing, testing private wells, maintaining septic tanks, eliminating use of smoky fuels, reducing wasteful consumption, preventing littering and making sustainable commuting decisions. Health and wellbeing (3) There are risks to our environment and our health from climate disruption, chemical exposure, and underinvestment in drinking water and wastewater treatment infrastructure. These risks must be addressed through state investment in targeted research, in monitoring and enforcement actions, and through investment by Irish Water in the necessary water services infrastructure. Environmental performance, tracking plans and programmes (1) Many of Ireland’s agreed environmental targets will not be met in the short term or will be delivered late. Despite progress in some areas, the scale and speed of improvements being made are insufficient to meet long-term EU and national objectives such as those covering water quality, air quality, nature protection, reducing emissions to air and the ambition for a climate-neutral economy and climate neutrality by 2050. To improve implementation, sustained improvements are needed in how the performance of environmental and sectoral plans, policies and strategies are coordinated and tracked, their effectiveness is measured and the outputs of such measurements are fed back into reviews and future updates. Environmental performance, tracking plans and programmes (2) The successes in environmental policy implementation to date, for example around industrial emissions and waste management, were hard won. These successes are being offset by increased levels of population growth, unsustainable patterns of production/consumption and climate change, resulting in a net decline in the state of Ireland’s environment. To reverse these trends, Ireland needs to improve the implementation and enforcement of existing environmental legislation and policy at all scales, from national to local levels. This can be supported through more effective governance structures, greater focus on monitoring and performance evaluation, enhanced oversight and enforcement, and higher levels of investment. Environmental performance, tracking plans and programmes (3) Tackling the complex and interlinked challenges facing the environment will require the development of more integrated, coherent and ambitious environmental policy frameworks and a clear national policy position for Ireland’s environment. 453