Ireland must adapt to climate change

This is the message at the core of a new report published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which outlines the latest predictions for the country’s climate over the next century.

The report Climate Change in Ireland: Refining the Impacts for Ireland takes an in depth, region by region look at the latest predictions and while the central theme – hotter, drier summers and more frequent extreme weather events – will come as a surprise to no-one, the detail makes for some enlightening reading.

Laura Burke, director of the Office of Climate, Licensing and Resource Use, EPA, said: “Climate projections such as those provided in this report enable us to assess potential impacts, plan and take actions to avoid the worst of these, and if possible to utilise positive changes.”

The projections are in line with earlier reports provided by the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) and Met Eireann, but are based on outputs from a wide range of global climate models, thereby increasing confidence in the projections.

They suggest that:

Sam Bond