National Parks
Ireland boasts six national parks that combine protection of the natural environment with a welcoming public. They offer a wide range of hiking trails and will delight lovers of nature and wide open spaces.
Connemara National Park: located in County Galway, this park boasts breathtaking landscapes between sea and mountains - including Diamond Hill - and protects moorland and peatland ecosystems.
Burren National Park : located in County Clare, it protects the ecosystems and picturesque landscapes of the Burren limestone plateau, shaped by grazing and dotted with megalithic sites.
Ballycroy National Park: located in County Mayo, it protects the remarkable ecosystems of the great Owenduff peat bog and the Nephin Beg mountain range.
Killarney National Park : located in County Kerry, it protects lakes, moors and forests rich in biodiversity, including remarkable birdlife, salmon and trout.
Glenveagh National Park : located in County Donegal, it is home to moorland, peatland and woodland ecosystems, as well as beautiful panoramic views of valleys and mountains.
Wicklow Mountains National Park : located in counties Wicklow and Dublin, it protects a rich cultural and natural heritage, including moorlands, forests and peatlands.
Shortcomings in water and waste management
Wastewater treatment remains a pressing issue in the country, where facilities are outdated or inadequate. In 2019, tap water no longer met drinking water standards in the Dublin region, where almost 600,000 residents were banned from drinking it. Waste management is also inadequate, as is public awareness. The country is also one of the biggest consumers of plastic in Europe, due in particular to the over-packaging of foodstuffs, a paradoxical situation in a country that was one of the first to introduce measures against single-use plastic (tax on plastic bags in 2002).
Ireland's response to climate change
Ongoing climate change is already affecting Ireland with unusual extreme events such as Hurricane Ophelia in 2017. The frequency and intensity of hazards (storms, floods, droughts) could worsen as the century progresses. Ireland is also threatened by rising sea levels and coastal erosion. In the face of this, actions do not match words. In 2017, along with other European countries, Ireland was sued by an NGO for inaction on climate change. In 2020, the country's Supreme Court of Justice struck down the climate change plan for lack of specifics. According to the Climate Change Index, a ranking carried out by the NGO Germanwatch, Ireland is at the bottom of the list of European countries in the fight against climate change. The main reasons for this are the country's heavy dependence on fossil fuels and its agricultural model (livestock and fodder crops). In terms of progress, we note the vote in 2018 by the Irish Parliament of a bill to prohibit public investment in companies whose turnover is more than 20% linked to fossil fuels. When leaving for Ireland, travelers can use the country's rail network, or make their journey by bicycle thanks to the many existing cycling routes. Ireland is accessible by boat and crossed by a European cycle route, EuroVelo1, and there are cycle tourism operators. In 2020, the Minister for the Environment has decided to invest 360 million euros per year for the next five years in the development of active mobility (cycling and walking), which represents 20% of Ireland's budget. It should be noted that two thirds of this budget is dedicated to public transport.
The impact of data centers
Data centers are major contributors to global warming. They consume a great deal of energy, not only for data storage, but also for air conditioning and building cooling systems. Ireland will have 54 datacenters by 2020, with some 40 projects underway. According to the Irish Academy of Engineering, data centers could account for over 30% of the country's energy consumption by 2030. While some of these facilities run on renewable energy or plan to recover heat from servers to heat homes, the issue of rising energy demand remains an important one.
The pitfalls of replanting
Long covered in forest, Ireland was deforested to the point of having only 1% forest left in 1928. Since the 1970s, the country has been undergoing reforestation (11% afforestation today), mainly through monocultures of Sitka spruce, originally from North America. However, these plantations are not forests. Forests are the result of a slow, natural process, and are home to a rich biodiversity, whereas plantations are the result of human activity, often for commercial purposes, and are poor in biodiversity. Irish forestry, subsidized by the State, is aimed at combating global warming. However, these plantations have a rather negative environmental impact. On the one hand, they contribute to the development of "green deserts" to the detriment of meadows and peat bogs. On the other hand, they have no mitigating effect on global warming. A study published in Nature magazine in 2018 highlights the fact that conifers, which are darker than deciduous trees, have the effect of reducing the albedo effect, and that clear-cutting contributes to a reduction in carbon storage capacity.
There are, however, initiatives to reforest former peatland sites with local species, including hardwoods. In terms of global warming mitigation, scientists are also interested in the potential of peatlands (a quarter of the country's surface area) and their capacity to store carbon.
