The World’s population increased by 204% from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 7.7 billion in 2019. The share of global population accounted for by Africa increased from 9% to 17% over this period, while that of Europe fell from 22% to 10%. Asia was the most populous region with 60% of the World’s population in 2019 (see Table 1.1).
Global life expectancy at birth increased from 47 years in the early 1950’s to 72.3 years in 2015-2020. Africa had the lowest life expectancy in 2015-2020 at 62.7 years while North America had the highest at 79.2 years (see Table 1.3).
Emissions of greenhouse gases in the European Union fell by 25% from 5.6 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 1990 to 4.2 billion tonnes in 2018. Emissions in the Russian Federation fell by 30% from 3.2 billion tonnes in 1990 to 2.2 billion tonnes in 2018. Emissions in the USA were 6.7 billion tonnes in 2018, up 4% from 6.4 billion tonnes in 1990 (see Table 1.4).
Environmental Economy
Revenue from environment taxation in Ireland decreased from 9.2% of total taxation in 2010 to 6.5% in 2019. Pollution and Resource taxes accounted for only 0.4% of total environment tax in 2019 (see Table 2.1).
Environmental subsidies in Ireland reached €1.1 billion in 2018 up 103% from €544 million in 2000 (see Table 2.2).
Domestic material consumption (DMC) increased from 88.4 million tonnes in 1995 to 179.8 million tonnes in 2007, before falling to 88.3 million tonnes in 2011. By 2017 DMC had increased to 109.9 million tonnes (see Table 2.4).
Air
Ireland performed poorly in terms of the reduction of emissions since the year 2000 compared with other EU Member States. In 2017 Ireland ranked 18th worst for PM2.5 relative to 2000; 11th worst for sulphur dioxide; worst for nitrogen oxides; seventh worst for ammonia; and worst for NMVOC’s.
Greenhouse Gases and Climate Change
In 2018, Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions were 60.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent. This was 9.9% higher than the 1990 figure of 55.5 million tonnes (see Figure 4.1).
Ireland had the third highest emissions of greenhouse gases per capita in the EU in 2018 at 12.6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (see Figure 4.2)
Agriculture was the sector with the highest greenhouse gas emissions in Ireland at 34% of the total in 2018 (see Table 4.2).
Water
In 2019, 89.1% of bathing water sites in Ireland were classified as being of good water quality (see Table 5.1).
In 2019, 30.4% of urban waste water in Ireland received secondary treatment with nutrient reduction compared with only 4% in 1997 (see Table 5.3).
The proportion of unpolluted river water in Ireland fell from an average annual 77.3% in 1987 -1990 to 66.2% in 2016 -2018 (see Table 5.4).
Land Use
In 2016, 10.7% of Ireland’s total land area was covered by forestry (see Table 6.1). This was the second lowest proportion in the EU28 (see Figure 6.1).
The area of agricultural land farmed organically in Ireland increased by 257% between 1997 and 2018, when it accounted for 1.4% of total agricultural land (see Table 6.2). This was the third lowest in the EU28 in 2018 (see Figure 6.2).
Energy
Renewable energy sources used in transport have grown from an average annual 0.1% of total transport energy consumption in 2006 to 7.2% in 2018. Biodiesel accounted for 88% of renewable energy sources used in transport in 2018 (see Table 7.5).
Renewable energy accounted for 33.2% of electricity generation in Ireland in 2018, close to the EU28 average of 32.1% (see Figure 7.2).
Transport
In 2019, 38.1 million international passengers travelled through Irish airports, the highest figure over the 1995-2019 period (see Table 8.3).
In 2019, 12.6% of all new cars licensed for the first time were Hybrid or Electric, up from 1.7% in 2015 (see Table 8.5).
Waste
Municipal waste generated in Ireland fell from 800 kilograms per capita in 2006 to 564 kilograms per capita in 2014 (see Table 9.1). In 2017 the figure was 578 kilograms per capita.
The recovery rate for packaging waste in Ireland improved from 23% in 2001 to 91% in 2015. In 2017 the recovery rate was 86% (see Table 9.3).
Biodiversity
In 2018, Ireland had the third lowest proportion of total land area in the EU28 designated as terrestrial Special Protected Areas under the EU Birds Directive, and the eight lowest proportion of total land area designated as terrestrial Special Areas of Conservation under the EU Habitats Directive, at 6.1% and 13.1% respectively (see Figures 10.2 and 10.3).
