The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has launched a public consultation to review Ireland’s sustainable mobility (active travel and public transport) policy “to ensure services are sustainable into the future and are meeting the needs of a modern economy”. The public consultation, which closes on the 24th January 2020, is open to all stakeholders including the public.
On Tuesday, 12th November 2019, President Michael D. Higgins hosted a seminar entitled "Rethinking Economics: The Role of the State in Fostering a Sustaiable and Inclusive Economy". In his opening remarks, he cautioned "the prevailing neoliberal model which features markets without regulation, distorted trade and unrestricted globalisation, the priority of the price mechanism and the practice of commodification, speculative investment, and which results in unbridled consumption, yawning inequality and destructive extraction of natural resources is unsustainable from economic, environmental and social standpoints."
Budget 2020 does not contain the ‘bold and new decisions’ required to meet the ‘defining challenge’ of climate change, and there was no progress on examining subsidies that the CSO has highlighted as potentially environmentally damaging.
Social Justice Ireland welcomes the Budget 2020 decision to increase the carbon tax from €20 per tonne to €26 per tonne. This is the first significant increase in the tax since it was introduced almost one decade ago, and we also welcome the commitment to ringfence the revenue to deal with the transition to a more carbon neutral economy.
The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals aim to leave no one behind. With minimal progress on these in recent years, Budget 2020 reinforces Ireland's position as a laggard.
The theme of the 2019 annual edition of Employment and Social Developments in Europe is sustainability. The report explores how the EU can support the transition to a socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable economy that benefits the well-being of all and leaves nobody behind.
What role can Local Authorities play in Ireland's progress towards the SDGs? Can small changes really make a big difference? We believe that they can. In this SDG Policy Briefing developed as part of the DEAR project, we set out some of the changes that Local Authorities could implement to create a more sustainable Ireland.
The UN Climate Action Summit 2019 begins in New York today. The purpose of the summit is for countries who signed the Paris Agreement in 2015 to bring concrete, realistic and effective plans to meet 2020 targets and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 45 per cent in the next ten years. What plan does Ireland have to fully transform the economy in line with the sustainable development goals?
It's time for Governments to put an end to policies that subsidise and encourage the extraction and use of fossil fuels. Without such a move, Ireland will continue to be a laggard in terms of our climate action goals and obligations.
Ireland has signed up to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and is committed to legally binding climate commitments in 2020 and 2030. We have a national commitment to be carbon neutral by 2050 yet we spend up to €4 billion every year on potentially environmentally damaging subsidies.
