Full coverage: Climate

Irish officials fear “significant fines and reputational damage” as the European Commission edges closer to legal action. The Government has now set up a steering group to crack down on unauthorised extraction – but it is too late to stave off a court date?

If anyone tells you that COP 30 shows that climate action is dead, think again. Despite the headwinds caused by the Trump administration’s love for oil and the stalling by the EU on mandatory reporting, the transition away from fossil fuels is well underway.

State bodies have the purchasing power to encourage the market to produce greener goods and services. New data shows signs of improvement in green procurement but with plenty of room to improve.

The climate department will miss the deadline to transpose EU laws which require it to collect and publish data centre emissions details, as well as the energy and water use from the resource-hungry sector.

While Budget 2026 doesn’t fund the actions needed to meet 2030 targets, it gives companies opportunities to benefit from the green transition.

The renewable energy company has just won state support for seven more projects after securing hundreds of millions of euro in equity and debt funding in recent weeks – not just to build solar farms, but to hold on to them, its CEO says.

The energy start-up was co-founded by Don O’Leary, the former site lead at Stripe in Ireland. It raised €1.5m from climate investors but is now being wound up with backers made whole.

Ireland missed the first deadline last September and now again this May as it has still not transposed the EU laws underpinning the new transparency requirements.

The latest figures concern just 11 data centres with active connection policies in place, while two dozen additional sites wish to access the gas grid despite a State pause on new connections amid climate concerns.

Farmers encouraged to plant trees in recent decades face income loss from a series of after-effects from storm Éowyn. The challenge is a test for newly appointed junior minister Michael Healy-Rae.