Critical Irish agriculture and tourism sectors at risk from climate change events, review warns

As a result of these recent events, the Government has been urged to “relentlessly pursue climate neutrality”, while developing and delivering measures to adapt to our changing climate with the same urgency.

“The delivery of proactive adaptation actions will help us to prepare for rapidly emerging risks at home and support our ability to be resilient to risks abroad that may impact us such as to trade or food supply,” said chair of the council’s adaptation committee Professor Peter Thorne.

“While this requires substantial initial investment, over time this will ultimately save money and offer numerous co-benefits.” 

Vulnerabilities

The Climate Change Advisory Council’s review highlights numerous areas where Ireland could be vulnerable to the effects of climate change in the future, as well as highlighting the impacts that have occurred already.

Notable events already have included the Midleton floods in late 2023, as well as the extremely wet winter and spring that followed.

It pointed to the country’s already declining biodiversity and said that without significant adaptation measures, there would be severe impacts on many species and habitats.

It also said that climate change is likely to impact all forms of agriculture, such as extreme rainfall events on one hand, and longer, more severe droughts on the other.

“Significant damage costs are projected for the infrastructure sector without effective adaptation,” the review said, adding that climate change adaptation in business and industry in Ireland is “very limited to date”.

“Tourism, a key sector in the economy, is highly exposed and vulnerable to climate risks and extreme events. While warmer summers are often held up as an opportunity for Irish tourism through increasing visitor numbers, without careful management this could create damaging and unsustainable pressures on sensitive heritage sites and environments.” 

To date, the review said that sectoral adaptation plans have been characterised by “limited levels of ambition” with “weak monitoring and evaluation”. It said there is a need to scale-up financing across departments.

Professor Thorne said: “We must now urgently move from aspirational words on paper to real actions that are financed and implemented if we are to avoid repeated heartbreaking events such as those from Midleton last year.

“Commercial semi-state agencies and regulators also need to fund and prioritise projects to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure such as ports, railways, the electrical grids and key roads. Failure to deliver this infrastructure would have adverse and complex impacts that would cascade across all sectors of society.”