A decision by the Irish state on whether a floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility is deemed necessary for energy security is expected in the coming weeks. This follows on from proposals for a state-led gas emergency reserve put forward in an energy security review published by the government in November 2023.
However, while any new fossil fuel infrastructure – state-led or commercial – would significantly undermine our emissions reduction efforts, it appears the formation of a new government has brought with it a change of direction, away from a state-led approach towards one that will be commercially driven[1]. The most prominent and controversial LNG proposal remains that of US-based company Shannon LNG, which has long been seeking planning permission for a large-scale LNG import terminal on the Tarbert-Ballylongford landbank in North Kerry. At this time of political uncertainty, the experiences of communities across Ireland who have been involved in People’s Transition projects facilitated by TASC’s Climate Justice team might offer important reflections on how inequality can be exacerbated by energy investment in particular ‘sacrifice zones’ – and what might be an alternative way forward.
The People’s Transition is a participative decision-making model developed by TASC that views climate action as an enabler of local development. By bringing together climate justice, community development, and participatory democratic processes, we demonstrate how citizen engagement and cultural change processes are stronger, fairer, and more sustainable if they involve grassroots climate action. This is particularly true in areas of high deprivation, where disillusionment with current democratic processes is allowing the far right to make inroads across the EU. The model gives people and communities a voice in, and ownership of, the transition to a zero-carbon society. It aims to enhance public support for climate action by tackling inequality and raising standards of living through the delivery of climate solutions.
Communities involved in these People’s Transition process have co-envisaged a vast range of innovative solutions to some of the socio-economic challenges facing them as part of their transition to a sustainable future. These include a community solar energy project, local retrofitting project, community greenspace, edible orchard, repair café, library of things, a community bio-hub cooperative, and a green transport strategy, among others. But while the People’s Transition is future-focused, local transition plans are built upon the needs and priorities of the community today. And despite there being support across all of these communities for ecologically sustainable development that benefits both people and the planet, the influence of fossil fuel proponents in some localities has complicated our efforts to produce scientifically grounded reports which discuss the negative impacts of new fossil fuel infrastructure and their role in the climate crisis. This influence has also sometimes impacted the participative decision-making process that characterises the People’s Transition process and has hindered consensus building. While such polarisation has sometimes made it difficult to progress the work as planned and in the way that we had hoped, it should never be seen as a reason to abandon efforts or a ‘steer clear’ notice of any kind. As Sinéad Mercier highlighted in Four Case Studies on Just Transition: Lessons for Ireland, transitions are inherently complex, take time, and are shaped by past experiences and context.[2] If we simply avoid ‘hard problem’ areas, they risk becoming ‘sacrifice zones’ of corporate capture. In such spaces, the physical and mental health and quality of life of human beings are compromised in the name of ‘economic development’ or ‘progress’ – but ultimately for the sake of outside business interests.[3]
In September 2023, An Bord Pleanála rejected an application by Shannon LNG, a subsidiary of US multinational New Fortress Energy, seeking to build a power plant, battery energy storage system, floating storage, and other associated works on the grounds that it was ‘contrary to Government policy[4]’. The decision was based on a 2021 Government policy on the importation of fracked gas – which would be the type of gas imported to Ireland via this project. However, in September 2024, this decision was overturned by the High Court, making the project viable once more. Opponents of the project claim that building such a facility will simply lock Ireland into more fossil fuel use for decades to come, while they also strongly oppose the use of imported fracked gas. Fracking for gas involves injecting water, sand, and chemicals into the ground at high pressure and is known to be severely environmentally destructive and polluting. The product of this process is liquified natural gas, a form of highly polluting fossil fuel that has already devastated large parts of the US – with particular impacts on working class and African American communities in multiple ‘sacrifice zones’ across the country. Activists on both sides of the Atlantic have been tireless in their opposition on the grounds of climate and environmental injustice. Thus, approval of the LNG facility risks locking Ireland into using polluting methane gas (which has 84 times the global warming potential of CO2 over a 20-year timescale)[5] for decades to come while simultaneously ignoring the impacts of the fracking process on marginalised communities in its country of origin.
Without doubt, it is fossil fuel companies such as New Fortress Energy that have been the main drivers of CO2 emissions globally. From 1988 to 2015, the contribution to global warming by fossil fuel companies doubled, producing in just twenty-eight years the equivalent of their emissions in the prior 237 years since the Industrial Revolution.[6] During that period, just 100 companies produced seventy-one per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions.[7] And by 2015, the fossil fuel industry and its products accounted for ninety-one per cent of global industrial greenhouse emissions and seventy per cent of all human-made emissions.[8] So, then what (we might ask) of accountability? At the United Nations building in New York on 22 September 2019, the We Mean Business coalition (consisting of eighty-seven major companies with a combined market capitalisation of over US$2.3 trillion and annual direct emissions equivalent to seventy-three coal-fired power plants) reassured us that they will ‘catalyse business action to drive policy ambition and accelerate the transition to a zero-carbon economy’.[9] And on the face of it, for some at least, this might appear to be good news. Yet while such dramatic declarations of corporate responsibility in relation to our current ecological catastrophe can certainly be witnessed on an increasingly regular basis, can we really trust the very institutions that have driven us so close to the proverbial cliff edge to now apply the brakes?
Rather than evolving into the embodiment of corporate responsibility as they would have us believe, as the scientific evidence alerting us to this anthropocentric ecocide has stacked up, fossil fuel and transportation corporations and affiliated trade associations have simultaneously rolled out massive public disinformation and government lobbying campaigns to prevent any meaningful response to these threats, while thwarting the adoption of any binding emissions commitments. Between 2000 and 2016, more than $2 billion was spent on lobbying climate change legislation in the United States alone.[10] Unfortunately, as a 2019 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights notes, in the US (the main historical driver of the crisis) this was ‘depressingly effective’ – the Kyoto Protocol was not ratified as a result.[11] And even as the Biden administration re-joined the Paris Agreement before the Trump administration’s recent withdrawal, their continued promotion of the oxymoronic ‘green capitalism’ meant that their newfound environmentalism remained, at best, a fantasy. As the Indigenous activist Ta’Kaiya Blaney of the Tla A’min Nation told the COP26 meeting in Glasgow – the process is nothing more than ‘a performance… an illusion constructed to save the capitalist economy rooted in resource extraction and colonialism’, and that accordingly: ‘I didn’t come here to fix the agenda – I came here to disrupt it’.[12] In fact, in spite of the rhetoric of the COP processes to date, the IPCC calculates that currently agreed international pledges and targets will still produce a 2.7-degree Celsius median global temperature increase by 2100[13] (which will result in catastrophic consequences to our more-than-human commons), and as Climate Action Tracker confirms: ‘there remains a substantial gap between what governments have promised to do and the total level of actions they have undertaken to date’.[14]
And yet even if we do manage to – against all odds – achieve our climate targets and avert the collective ecocide we appear to be careering towards, there remains the very real danger of new kinds of sacrifice zones being created in the wake of Ireland’s (very welcome) green energy enthusiasm. For example, at the opposite end of the carbon spectrum, our work in a number of communities in Ireland has revealed that, in the absence of sufficient state investment and public funding, community groups have become dependent on benefit funds provided by privately owned renewable energy projects to keep the lights on, ultimately leaving these communities unable to meaningfully participate in the democratic process of deliberating on such projects. This reflects the situation of many more communities across the globe in which there is a growing similarity between the narratives of residents affected by green energy projects, most notably by wind turbines, and those in the sacrifice zones of fossil capitalism – a shared sense of ‘bearing all of the risks and reaping few of the rewards.’[15]
What is widely agreed upon across the communities we work with is that an improvement is needed in local socio-economic conditions, leading to increased employment opportunities, and this must be core to any effort to realise a just transition. Equally important is ensuring a fair distribution of both the benefits and the burdens. An alternative approach would be to leverage state investment and the current diversity of European funds to enhance the democratisation of local economies and expand the capabilities of communities to realise their development priorities – creating pathways that deliver such funds to community-envisioned solutions to the climate and ecological crises such as the innovative ideas arrived at through the People’s transition projects in Ireland. This would diminish the extractivism experienced by such communities from big business – whether fossil or green – and create the community buy-in necessary for the scale and pace of transformation required.
Such a Community Wealth Building (CWB) approach is a flexible, site-specific economic model. Coined by The Democracy Collaborative in 2005[16], CWB is a place-based, practical systems approach to economic development built on local roots and plurality of ownership. The pillars, or strategies, utilised by CWB models differ depending on the needs of the local community. CWB models recognise diversity of place and the importance of malleable strategies. CWB is a partnership between anchor institutions, communities and businesses which aims to create strong, sustainable local economies that support fair work, encourage local spending and use public land and property for the common good. Crucially, social and environmental gains are included as an intentional function of the economy in a CWB model, which ensures environmental and economic stability.[17]
In short, Ireland’s ‘have our cake and eat it’ approach to renewable energy governance involves modes of regulation that aim to reduce carbon emissions while not threatening the power structures that have caused our cascading climate and ecological crises in the first place. By blindly continuing to promote profit-driven incentive structures, and thus constricting potential responses to these crises within such a shallow conception of the green economy, we run the risk of overshooting multiple planetary boundaries and crossing environmental tipping points beyond which there is no return. As Professor Jonathan Porrit argues: ‘In terms of delivering a Net Zero economy, 100% [renewable energy] is undoubtedly the way to go – but not as some heedless technofix that allows politicians to continue to avert their eyes from the much deeper, systemic problems that now confront humankind.’[18] It is, therefore, essential that we now see the decision-making of state bodies truly line up with our climate obligations – and without further delay. There’s too much at stake for anything else.
Notes
[1] Daniel Murray, ‘Government moves towards commercial LNG facility in departure from Green policy.’ Business Post, 16th February 2025. Available online: https://www.businesspost.ie/article/government-moves-towards-commercial-lng-facility-in-departure-from-green-policy/
[2] Sinéad Mercier, ‘Four Case Studies on Just Transition: Lessons for Ireland.’ National Economic and Social Council Research Series, Paper No.15, May 2020.
[3] See: Marcelo Lopes de Souza, ‘Sacrifice zone: The environment–territory– place of disposable lives’. Community Development Journal 56:2 (2021), 220–243.
[4] An Board Pleanála, ‘Board Order ABP-311233-21’. Available online: https://www.pleanala.ie/anbordpleanala/media/abp/cases/orders/311/d311233.pdf?r=354962981298
[5] European Commission, ‘Methane emissions’. Available online: https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/carbon-management-and-fossil-fuels/methane-emissions_en#:~:text=In%20fact%2C%20methane's%20ability%20to,on%20a%2020%2Dyear%20timescale.
[6] Paul Griffin, ‘The Carbon Majors Database CDP Carbon Majors Report’. Climate Accountability Institute, 2017, p. 2.
[7] Ibid, p. 8.
[8] Ibid.
[9] We Mean Business Coalition, ‘87 major companies lead the way towards a 1.5°C future at UN Climate Action Summit’. Press release, 22nd September 2019. Available online: www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org/press-release/87-major-companies-lead-the-way-towards-a-1-5c-future-at-un-climate-action-summit/
[10] Robert J. Brulle, ‘The climate lobby: a sectoral analysis of lobbying spending on climate change in the USA, 2000 to 2016’. Climatic Change 149 (2018), 289–303.
[11] OHCHR, ‘Climate change and poverty: Report of the Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights’, delivered to the Human Rights Council Forty-first session, 24th June – 12th July 2019.
[12] Libby Brooks, ‘Hundreds of global civil society representatives walk out of Cop26 in protest’. The Guardian, 12th November 2021.
[13] IPCC. ‘Summary for Policymakers’, in Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change. Contribution of Working Group III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2022), p. 21.
[14] See: Climate Action Tracker, Temperatures: Addressing Global Warming, 2021. Available online: https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/
[15] Dayna Nadine Scott and Adrian A. Smith, ‘Sacrifice Zones in the Green Energy Economy: Toward an Environmental Justice Framework’. McGill Law Journal 62:3 (2017), 861-898.
[16] Joe Guinan and Martin O’Neill, ‘From Community Wealth Building to System Change’, IPPR Progressive Review 25: 4 (2019), 386.
[17] See: Seán McCabe, The People’s Transition: Community-led Development for Climate Justice (Dublin: TASC & FEPS, 2020).
[18] Jonathon Porritt , ‘Getting Real About Net Zero.’ Earth.org, 2021. Available online: https://earth.org/getting-real-about-net-zero-by-jonathon-porritt/
Róisín Greaney
Current research
Róisín is a climate justice researcher at TASC. This research aims to apply TASC's expertise in inequality to advancing climate justice and realising a Just Transition. As part of TASC's People's Transition work, Róisín is currently working with communities in Waterford City and the South Kerry Gaeltacht to explore how climate action can reduce inequality and be an enabler of local development. Alongside undertaking the People’s Transition projects, Róisín is also conducting research as part of an Erasmus+ funded project, Football for Climate Justice.
Background
Róisín holds an MSc in Climate Change: Media, Policy and Society from Dublin City University and a BA in Global Business and Spanish DCU from Universidad Pontificia Comillas in Madrid. Prior to joining TASC, Róisín worked for several years in the not-for-profit sector with Greenpeace Australia Pacific and, more recently, with Concern Worldwide.
Dr Matt York
Dr Matt York is Senior Researcher in Climate Justice at TASC.
Matt is currently working on Phase II of the People’s Transition — focusing on community-led climate action that seeks to address inequality. He holds an MRes in Development Practice from the University of East Anglia and a PhD in Politics from University College Cork. He has published widely on critical political theory, social and ecological activism, prefigurative politics, the utopian imagination, and the politics of love. Prior to joining the TASC team, Matt worked in a number of community development projects in Ireland, the UK, and South Africa; led participatory research projects with a range of social and ecological activists internationally; and lectured at University College Cork. His book Love and revolution was published by Manchester University Press in 2023, and he is currently co-editing the book Deep Commons forthcoming with SUNY Press.
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