Benchmarking study of Ireland’s new climate law

A benchmarking study of the recently enacted climate law has been published by Dr. Diarmuid Torney, an associate professor in DCU’s School of Law and Government and co-director of the new DCU Centre for Climate & Society.

Commissioned by Friends of the Earth, the report carried out a comparative assessment of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. This legislation was a key commitment in the coalition government’s Programme for Government, and amended a previous climate law that had been enacted in 2015. 

Responding to climate change requires unprecedented and concerted responses across all sectors of economy and society. Framework climate laws are an increasingly common governance response to the challenge of achieving the scale of transformation required. They can provide an overarching framework to coordinate government responses to the climate crisis. 

Framework climate laws have been enacted across a growing number of countries in Europe and beyond. Dr. Torney’s research assessed whether and to what extent Ireland’s new climate law delivers eight core components that have been identified in international comparative research as key features of national framework climate laws.

In respect of all eight elements, Dr. Torney’s research found that the 2021 Act strengthens Ireland’s existing legislative framework for climate action, In some respects, this was not a particularly tall order, since the 2015 Act was widely recognised as weak by international standards 

When benchmarked against international best practice, the conclusion of this assessment is favourable overall. In respect of many of the core design elements, the 2021 revisions place Ireland broadly in the realm of international best practice, though there are some exceptions and some remaining shortcomings.

The report is available to download here and was featured in the Irish Times here.