Taoiseach Micheál Martin has rowed back on climate change commitments, saying Ireland may not be able fulfil all current initiatives due to the polarising effect it could have on society.

Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions The failure of carbon offsets to cut planet-heating pollution is “not due to a few bad apples”, a review paper has found, but down to deep-seated systemic problems that incremental change will not solve. Research over two decades has found “intractable” problems that have made carbon credits in most big programmes poor quality, according to the study. While the industry and diplomats have made efforts to improve the system, it found much-awaited rules agreed at a UN climate summit last year “did not substantially address the quality problem”. Continue reading...

Negotiations down to the wire, with five big-spending departments yet to agree their budget allocations