Ireland has retained the unwanted title of worst-performing EU country on climate action based on the latest climate change performance index (CCPI).

The CCPI was designed to enhance transparency in international climate politics and to encourage countries to take action on climate change.

Countries are ranked across 14 indicators within four categories; GHG emissions, renewable energy and energy use and climate policy.

Update

In the most recent CCPI update published on 10 December, Ireland moved up one position, but still remains in the low performance bracket, just ahead of Turkey and Japan.

No country performed well enough to reach the very good standard and so the top three places in the index remain unfilled.

Sweden leads the ranking, followed by Morocco and Lithuania.

The bottom five in this year’s CCPI are Saudi Arabia, the United States of America, Islamic Republic of Iran, Republic of Korea and Chinese Taipei, scoring low or very low across almost all categories.

Ireland’s performance

The index found Ireland’s performance in the emissions category was very low, while energy use was ranked as low.

The report did contain some praise: “Due to its increased renewable energy share over the past five years and forthcoming support schemes for renewable heat and renewable electricity which recognise the value of citizen and community participation, Ireland is rated medium in the renewable energy category.”

The Dáil was commended for “the innovative Citizens’ Assembly process which produced far-reaching recommendations for climate action now being considered by a special parliamentary committee working on the development of Ireland’s National Energy and Climate Plan”.

Negative

However, the overall assessment for Ireland was negative.

“Existing climate mitigation efforts will not enable Ireland to achieve either its EU 2020 or 2030 targets domestically.

"The long-standing lack of implementation of substantive measures to put the country on a well-below 2°C pathway results in a very low rating for Ireland’s national policy performance,” the report concluded.