Climate Change Ireland | Bold New Measures from Irish Government Announced to Tackle Marine Pollution, Biodiversity Loss, and Climate Impacts

• The Irish government has launched a new program of measures aimed at safeguarding Ireland’s marine environment, addressing the pressures facing the country’s seas, including climate change impacts and pollution.
• The program includes a range of commitments from several government departments, including the development and expansion of Marine Protected Areas, measures to protect biodiversity, and actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
• The program was developed following a 2020 assessment of the health of Ireland’s seas and is a central element of the country’s commitment to ensuring clean and healthy marine waters across Europe.

What is Ireland doing for climate change?

The Irish government has announced a new program of measures aimed at protecting and preserving the country’s marine environment. The program, which is designed to address the pressures facing Ireland’s seas, includes a range of commitments across various government departments.

The program was unveiled by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, and the Minister of State for Heritage and Electoral Reform, Malcolm Noonan. Its aim is to ensure the sustainable use of Ireland’s seas, restore degraded ecosystems and species, and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

Minister O’Brien highlighted the importance of the program, saying, “This Programme is key to meeting Ireland’s ambition for a clean, healthy, biologically diverse marine environment. Through these concrete actions, we can tackle pressures on the marine environment and protect the many benefits we get from the sea.”

The program, which is a central element of Ireland’s commitment to ensuring Europe’s marine waters are clean and healthy, includes co-operative measures with other EU Member States and the UK to tackle pollution, including marine litter, entering our seas and to protect our valuable ecosystems.

Ireland Climate Change Targets

Minister Noonan emphasised the importance of protecting and restoring biodiversity in Ireland’s seas, saying, “The implementation of this program – with even more marine protected areas – will help us meet our ambitious goals for nature, conservation and biodiversity, including the achievement of 30% protection by 2030.”

The program includes a range of actions aimed at improving the state of Ireland’s marine environment. These actions include developing and expanding Ireland’s Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) to cover 30% of the country’s marine area by 2030, enacting the Marine Protected Areas Bill in 2023, and providing environmental guidance for offshore renewable energy.

The program also includes measures to develop nature-based solutions in coastal and marine systems, protect biodiversity, improve resilience to climate change, and reduce the impact of pollution. It also aims to update guidance on reducing underwater noise pollution to protect marine mammals and to fully implement the Single Use Plastics Directive and Circular Economy Act.

The program incorporates specific measures aimed at improving the state of marine biodiversity. These include ongoing measures to reduce the impacts of incidental bycatch, revision of both the Wildlife Acts and wildlife watching codes of practice and increased spatial protection measures.

The suite of actions developed under the program were developed following a 2020 assessment of the health of Ireland’s seas. The assessment identified key areas where environmental targets for Ireland’s marine environment were both being reached and not reached. Targets to achieve good environmental status were identified in relation to biodiversity, seafloor systems, and pressures due to commercial fisheries.

As part of Ireland’s commitments under the national Climate Action plan, the program includes actions to mitigate and adapt to climate change. These include specific measures such as the development of Nature-Based Solutions and the expansion of Marine Protected Areas to consider both carbon storage and the resilience of ecosystems to the effects of climate change and ocean acidification.

JBX PaperPak

At JBX PaperPak, we believe the Irish government’s new program of measures is an important step towards protecting and preserving this country’s vulnerable marine environment. We are glad to see this range of commitments designed to ensure the sustainable use of Ireland’s seas, restore degraded ecosystems and species, and mitigate the impacts of climate change.

By enacting these measures, Ireland is taking an important step towards ensuring that its marine environment remains healthy and vibrant for generations to come. This is the same reason that we do what we do here at JBX PaperPak every day; we produce our 100% recyclable, compostable and biodegradable ISO certified paper straws to reduce the amount of plastic pollution going into our oceans. It is also why we use all local supply partners for our materials, importing nothing, to minimise our carbon footprint as much as possible.

Measures such as these will always be welcomed by JBX PaperPak, but we should never let ourselves become complacent. We should continue to make our voices heard in letting our government know that protecting Ireland’s environment and combatting climate change should continue to be a top priority for them.