This week, Minister for Finance Jack Chambers and Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe announced the Irish Budget for 2025. With measures aiming to put Ireland on a “firm footing for the future”, Budget 2025 allocated it’s highest-ever funding to the Department of Environment.

A number of climate tax measures were announced, including an increase to the carbon tax on fossil fuels. This  announced a €7.50 increase on carbon tax to €63.50 per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions, as well as an increase to carbon tax levied on other fuels to be brought in from May 2025.

Environment minister Eamon Ryan said the budget’s allocation for climate-related issues demonstrates the Government’s commitment to reaching net-zero, saying “There is a sea-change in how we view the environment and this record investment for the Department represents a real commitment to making sure that climate action is working for each and every household in Ireland”.

Conversely, Friends of the Earth (FoE), an environmental non-governmental organisation, said that the budget lacked the innovation urgently needed “to make the climate transition fairer and really inclusive”. FoE noted the “missed opportunity in key areas where we wanted to see a step-change in policy and investment”. One of these opportunities is retrofitting social housing, or the improvement of energy efficiency in homes to make them easier to heat and retain heat.

Budget 2025 also allocated €3 billion to the new Infrastructure, Climate and Nature fund (ICNF) and €1.75 billion to critical infrastructure.

In Irish news:

• Environment minister Eamon Ryan is set to play a key role at the COP29 summit and will co-facilitate talks on ‘climate adaptation’.
• Northern Ireland has approved it’s first Environmental Improvement Plan (EIP) after the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs had been reprimanded by the UK’s environmental watchdog.
• The latest ‘State of the Environment’ report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says Ireland is failing key tests of a healthy environment and warns that the overall outlook in most areas is “uncertain” at best.

In other world news:

• Britain is to become the first G7 country to end coal power, as it closes it’s last coal plant in Uniper’s  Ratcliffe-on-Soar and ends over 140 years of coal power production.
• The EU proposes to delay their anti-deforestation law for a year, which would ban the import of commodities linked to deforestation, in response to growing concerns from global trading partners.
• Donald Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, has sparked controversy for refusing to say that climate change is real at the US vice-presidential debate, dismissing it as “weird science”.