The Politics of Emergency? Ireland's Response to Climate Change

A striking phenomenon in the recent history of climate change politics has been the declaration of ‘climate emergencies’ in many countries. Ireland was the second country to do so on 9 May 2019. What does it mean in political and institutional terms to treat climate change as an emergency? Drawing on recent literature in environmental politics as well as the Copenhagen School of security studies, this article identifies four characteristics of emergency politics: policy prioritisation, mobilisation of resources, the role of experts in policymaking, and oversight and scrutiny of government decision-making. It then analyses the Irish state's response to date to the climate crisis in terms of these four characteristics. The article argues that Ireland's response to date falls considerably short of the kind of response we might expect to be associated with emergency politics. It concludes with a normative reflection on the politics of climate emergencies.