As rain and waves pummelled the east of the country last week, it was hard to avoid a sense of climate dread. But then, on Thursday, the Supreme Court issued a judgment which brought some light to these dark times. The resolution of the Coolglass Wind Farm versus An Bord Pleanála case is important and will ensure public bodies can be held to account for delivering on our climate plans.
The case centred around An Bord Pleanála’s refusal to grant permission for a Co Laois wind farm in August, 2024. The refusal was based on the development being in an unapproved area under the local development plan. Justice Richard Humphreys quashed the planning authority’s decision in the High Court, on the grounds it had failed to meet its obligations under our climate law. He ordered it to reconsider its decision.
An Bord Pleanála (now An Coimisiún Pleanála) and the State challenged that verdict. Seven Supreme Court judges considered the issue and Chief Justice Donal O’Donnell delivered their judgment last week. They agreed with the High Court decision to refer the application back to the planning authority.
Their decision was based on narrower grounds than the High Court opinion. The judges’ rationale centred around section 15(1) of the Climate Act, as amended in 2021, which requires that all public bodies “shall, in so far as practicable, perform its functions in a manner consistent with” certain climate plans and long-term strategies.
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When An Bord Pleanála made its original decision, the national Climate Action Plan was already 416 pages long and had been approved by government three times. It had specific targets for onshore and offshore wind, which we were late in delivering largely due to delays and problems in our planning system.
The Supreme Court argued the amended law “imposes an obligation not just of process but of outcome”, adding that “compliance is a wholly objective question and is a matter of law”. They believed the planning authority had not engaged with the climate plan in a substantial way, outlining that “the courts have to see that climate duties are complied with and standards are met”.
The court argued that the commission should have done “a form of climate sense-check” before making their decision. If they had done so, they would have seen one wind-farm application after another was being turned down, due to ever more restrictive local authority development plans. And they would have seen that it might be time to avail of the provisions they have to sometimes overlook such local authority direction.
The judgment does not weaken An Coimisiún Pleanála’s powers, or give the courts any right to influence any individual planning decision. Nor did it address one of the other main problems, which was a delay in providing more resources to the planning authorities. In the end, this cost more by undermining everyone’s building plans.
What it does is put every public servant on notice. If your particular sector is not delivering the climate measures you are responsible for, then the relevant Minister has to explain to the Oireachtas what is happening and show how we get back on track. You have a legal obligation to correct the course for climate change, no matter what your board or boss may say.
Some people in the system may now want to open up and amend the law, either to avoid such a responsibility or to weaken the overall targets, because they know the next five-year budget is going to be much more challenging. Doing so would be a terrible mistake. This kind of pessimism ignores the many great things Irish people are increasingly doing to address climate change.
We are better at tackling the issue than we give ourselves credit for. With the flexibilities allowed for under EU rules, we will be within our first carbon budget for 2021-2025. The roll-outs of retrofitting, solar power, organic farming, electric vehicles and new rural buses are where they’re supposed to be at this stage.
We will have to adjust how we measure land use and agriculture emissions due to changing scientific knowledge in that area, but that should be done via secondary legislation and not by reopening the primary law. Our climate action plan already focuses on the need for a just transition – and sticking to it is the best way of delivering a fair as well as more secure economy. Similarly, adhering to the National Adaptation Framework agreed in 2024 will be the best way of maintaining our island home in these turbulent, climate-changing times.
There will be more storms ahead, but giving up on climate ambition is not the answer. The path forward isn’t an easy one, but after last week’s judgment it has never been more clear.
