Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

105 Chapter 4: Climate Change To date, Ireland’s transition away from fossil fuels has most affected the Midlands, owing to the cessation of the commercial extraction of peat for electricity generation. Exchequer and EU funding through the Just Transition Mechanism, including the EU Just Transition Fund, has targeted up to €169 million to this region by 2027. Ireland’s Just Transition Framework was established in the 2021 Climate Action Plan (DECC, 2021) and is based on four principles: 1. An integrated, structured and evidence-based approach is used to identify and plan our response to just transition requirements. 2. People are equipped with the right skills to be able to participate in and benefit from the future net zero economy. 3. The costs are shared so that the impact is equitable and existing inequalities are not exacerbated. 4. Social dialogue is used to ensure that the citizens and communities affected are empowered and are at the centre of the transition process. In April 2024, the Just Transition Task Force made recommendations to the government about the task force’s role and remit. For instance, the task force recommended that, to effectively support the achievement of a just transition, the Just Transition Commission carry out progress monitoring, provide recommendations for policy development and implementation, carry out research on the sectors most likely to require support, identify how this support should be provided and give advice to the government on how effective climate action social dialogue should be structured. It also recommended that the commission should engage with communities that face particular transition and resilience challenges. To ensure the achievement of a just transition, public engagement and participation in transition management are essential. The outcomes of stakeholder engagement processes and in particular the voices of vulnerable citizens must be incorporated into climate policy. Additionally, to achieve a just resilience, the vulnerabilities of citizens to the climate impacts they face must be understood, planned for and managed all the way through from risk assessment to adaptation planning and implementation. 9. Research In 2021, the EPA published EPA Research 2030, a 10-year framework to guide EPA research. Climate change evidence needs are identified as one of the four core elements of the framework. Specifically, the framework sets out that climate change is already having an impact in Ireland and that strong mitigation and adaptation measures are needed. Research is essential for providing the evidence necessary to improve our knowledge systems and inform policy decisions that will advance our ambitions to be carbon neutral and resilient to climate disruption (Figure 4.16). The National Environmental Research Coordination Group (NERCG) was established by the EPA to coordinate research related to climate change in Ireland. The NERCG supports and promotes collaboration by research funding organisations. The objectives are to progress shared strategic goals for climate change research, to ensure coordination in climate change research expenditure in Ireland and to link these to European funding streams, including Horizon Europe and the Joint Programming Initiative Climate. Between 2020 and 2022, the EPA funded 59 climate-related projects to a total value of €14,354,000. The wider NERCG membership has funded a total of 368 projects, amounting to €201,800,000 in funding for climate-related projects during the same period. Figure 4.16  Ireland’s Climate Change Assessment: Synthesis Report (Thorne et al. , 2023)