The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021 may have had an impact on some of the indicators (such as emissions to air, transport and energy) in this publication.
World population increased by 210% between 1950 and 2021 from 2.5 billion to 7.9 billion. Asia accounted for 59% of the World’s population in 2021 (see Table 1.1).
Renewable energy accounted for 42% of electricity generation in Ireland in 2020 up from 5% in 1990. (See Table 7.3).
Large energy users accounted for 23% of metered electricity consumption in 2021 (see Table 2.10).
Ireland had the second highest emissions of greenhouse gases per capita in the EU27 in 2020 at 11.6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent (see Figure 4.2).
Fossil fuel subsidies were estimated at €2.2 billion in 2020 up from €1.5 billion in 2000 but below the €2.8 billion figure in 2019 (see Figure 2.1).
The percentage of dwellings completed between 2015 and 2021 with a building energy rating of A was 98% (see Table 2.7).
The proportion of rivers and streams in Ireland with high water quality declined from 27% between 1987-1990 to 17% in 2017-2020 (see Table 5.4).
This is the eighth edition of Environmental Indicators Ireland.
A total of 69 indicators covering 10 domains have been selected for this publication. The indicators are updated from the 2021 report to show the most recent data available. Many of the indicators are presented in a time-series format for Ireland, while the international context is shown by comparing Ireland with other countries and world regions for the latest year for which data are available.
The environment area is wide-ranging and the 10 domains cover the global context, environmental economy, air, greenhouse gases and climate change, water, land use, energy, transport, waste and biodiversity.
The CSO wishes to thank: BirdWatch Ireland; Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine; Department of Transport; European Environment Agency; Environmental Protection Agency; Eurostat; Met Éireann; National Parks and Wildlife Service; Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland; and United Nations for providing data and technical advice on the most appropriate indicators for Ireland.
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Statistician's Comment
Commenting on the publication Reamonn McKeever, Statistician in the Environment and Climate Division of the Central Statistics Office (CSO) said: “Today, we publish the 2022 CSO report on Environmental Indicators Ireland. This publication covers 69 indicators over ten themes.
World population increased by 210% from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 7.9 billion in 2021. Ireland’s population increased from 3 million in 1951 to 5.1 million in 2021.
In terms of global warming, 2015-2019 were the five warmest years on record as measured by global mean near surface temperature deviations compared with pre-industrial 1850-1899 levels.
Emissions of greenhouse gases by the EU27 fell by 32% from 4.8 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 1990 to 3.3 billion tonnes in 2020. Irish emissions rose by 11.4% from 55.2 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent in 1990 to 61.5 million tonnes in 2021.
When we look at Ireland in particular, areas of good or improved performance include:
However, there remain many areas where performance is poor, including: