Ireland’s Green Deal meets COP26

Ireland’s track record evidences that we are better at setting targets than meeting them. At COP26 world governments will be asked to raise their climate targets for the first time since the Paris Agreement in 2015 which agreed to limit global warming “well below” 2°C, ideally 1.5°C, to avoid climate catastrophe. Now, countries will be asked to submit updated ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’. This is a seminal moment to see whether 1.5°C can be kept alive, or whether the world is likely to miss net zero carbon by 2050. Irrespective of the targets agreed at COP26 business will see a range of impacts as expectations around outcomes harden. Valerie Lawlor considered how this challenge can be reconciled to Ireland’s practical and political realities.