Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

14 Executive Summary An essential part of implementation is the enforcement of environmental law. While the EPA has a broad remit on environmental regulation and enforcement, local authorities also have a vital statutory responsibility to protect our environment. They are responsible for enforcing much of Ireland’s environmental protection legislation within their functional areas. While the scale of enforcement carried out by local authorities is significant, in many respects it is not delivering the necessary environmental outcomes such as improved water and air quality, reduced noise exposure, protection of biodiversity and improved circularity in the management of our resources. Continuing to focus on delivering environmental outcomes via this implementation and regulatory work is critical to protecting Ireland’s environment. Transforming our systems Ireland, like Europe, faces persistent problems in areas such as biodiversity loss, inefficient resource use, climate change impacts and environmental risks to health and wellbeing. These risks are inextricably linked to economic activities and lifestyles, in particular the societal systems that provide us with food, energy and mobility. All aspects of how we live, from the homes and communities we inhabit, to the places we work and how we move ourselves and goods, have the potential to impact and be impacted by the environment. In recent decades we have seen Irish law progress from seeking to limit pollution at the end-of-pipe stage towards driving improved efficiency. This approach has delivered substantial benefits. While this is important, we need to go beyond reducing pollution and incremental efficiency improvements. Collectively, we must transform many of the entrenched wasteful systems to shift our society onto a sustainable trajectory, such as moving from transport based largely on private vehicles to sustainable mobility enabled by good planning and accessible public transport, delivering more efficient buildings and replacing fossil fuel-based heating systems in our homes and businesses. Taking action now makes good economic and environmental sense. Making this transition will impact on all members of society as we will all have to change our behaviours and the technology we adopt in our daily lives. In so doing we need to make the right sustainable choices easier to implement. Many of the activities in this report related to energy, food and transport are endeavouring to make the shift to more sustainable societal systems. Progress is not, however, keeping pace with the pressures and is happening too slowly to address the growing locked in pressures for the next decade. In this context we need to speed up the transition to avoid costly lock-ins into carbon-intensive and unsustainable production and consumption practices. This will require concerted action engaging diverse policy areas and actors across society in accelerating transformation in the core areas of energy, circular economy, transport, food systems and the just transition. Clearly, we also have to look at how we manage our land so that land management practices and the allocation of land to meet the many environmental and economic targets are addressed from a multifunctional perspective. This will include recognising the need for a substantial increase in Ireland’s afforestation rates and space for nature. Phase 1 of the Land Use Review has given us valuable information on which aspects to develop and the ongoing phase 2 will support progress in this space. Given that the majority of land in Ireland is held privately, dialogue and engagement with landowners is a critical element of planning for, and delivering, sustainable and just land use that supports the necessary transitions in our societal systems.