Labour tops independent manifesto assessment on climate, the three largest parties all fail

Campaigners call for would-be Taoiseachs to be challenged on their party’s failure in Leaders’ Debate

The Labour Party has come out on top in an independent assessment of the climate action pledges in party manifestos, receiving an A grade, ahead of the Social Democrats on A and the Greens on a B. The three parties vying to provide the next Taoiseach, Fianna Fail, Fine Gael and Sinn Fein, all failed the assessment, scoring an E grade. 

Coordinated by UCD’s Earth institute and commissioned by Friends of the Earth, the assessment was carried out by Dr. Cara Augustenborg, Professor Hannah Daly and Professor Mary Murphy. The judges evaluated the manifestos of nine political parties against Friends of the Earth’s Programme for Faster and Fairer Climate Action 2025-2030.

The full assessment report includes an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each party manifesto on climate. In their summary the judges concluded:

“The parties who received the highest scores in this assessment, especially Labour and Social Democrats, placed climate action as a key policy priority; detailed a comprehensive set of policies to deliver faster and fairer decarbonisation; and viewed climate action as a lever to achieve positive outcomes in many other areas within their manifestos. This aligned closely with Friends of the Earth’s Programme for Faster and Fairer Climate Action 2025-2030, which takes a people-centred approach to addressing climate change. 

“It was promising to see several political parties, particularly the Labour Party, Social Democrats, the Green Party, and People Before Profit, considering climate issues in such depth. Within their manifestos, all political parties committed to accelerate construction of renewable energy infrastructure, and most parties - with the exception of Aontú -  placed household energy retrofitting high on their agendas. 

“However, climate action is still only a core priority for smaller parties. While larger parties are starting to show good progress in committing to renewable energy and retrofitting homes, their commitment to genuine, transformative climate action is still weak.

“A key difference between the political parties who received failing grades (i.e. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael, Sinn Féin and Aontú) compared to political parties with higher grades (i.e. Labour, Social Democrats, Green Party and People Before Profit) was that failing parties were far more focused on accelerating development of wind and solar infrastructure than curtailing the burning of fossil fuels. In other words, they answered only half of the climate question by not committing to phasing out fossil fuels and stopping the building of new fossil fuel infrastructure.

“While most political parties made the link between our dependency on fossil fuels and high energy prices, which impact our cost of living, failing parties had insufficient policies to end our dependence on these costly fuels. In contrast, the highest scoring parties were willing to “grasp the nettle” and propose transformative actions in thorny topics like aviation, roads and food policy. 

Reacting to the report, Friends of the Earth chief executive, Oisín Coghlan, said:

“It is alarming that the manifestos of the three parties vying to provide the next Taoiseach all failed this independent climate assessment. They all voted for the climate law and the binding limits on pollution adopted by the last Dáil. But their manifestos don’t contain polices to reduce emissions fast enough to meet those 2030 commitments.

“I hope the three would-be Taoiseachs will be challenged in Tuesday’s RTE Leaders’ Debate about their climate policies. Climate change isn’t going away and we need to know are they ready to deliver faster and fairer action.

“We know how to deliver climate action that also addresses the immediate needs of people struggling with the cost of living. It a focus on delivering warmer homes with lower bills and cleaner air. More reliable, accessible and affordable public transport, rural as much as urban. 

“That means a focus on the Government driving the transformation we need in our energy, transport, housing and food systems. Not leaving it to subsidies, taxes and individual behaviour change. The state has to lead to make a zero pollution future accessible, affordable and appealing for all.

“Voters still have time to tell their local candidates what kind of climate action they want. They can email them from Friends of the Earth’s website. And ultimately it will be down to negotiations between the parties of the 34^th Dáil to turn these manifestos into a Programme for Government that delivers faster and fairer climate action.” 

Concluding their report, the judges said:

“This process was illuminating and gave insight into the coherence of each party’s engagement with the existential climate challenge. Parties who did best committed to systematic, ambitious, high-level interventions with significant impact. Their policies delivered both ecological and social outcomes, and promised the necessary investment in state and institutional capacity to deliver on targets. 

“For this evaluation, in order to show their commitment to deliver on Ireland’s climate pledge, political parties had to prioritise climate and nature across their manifesto, as well as providing credible, practical and detailed plans to deliver faster and fairer emissions cuts. 

“We were positively surprised there was more than one political party capable of this. However, the larger political parties need to take a close look at the transformative policies smaller parties are proposing and follow suit if they intend to make Ireland a resilient, competitive, and healthy place to live and work.”

Notes

1. The independent assessment report is online here: https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/assets/files/pdf/climate_assessment_of_2024_ge_manifestos_for_friends_of_the_earth.pdf.  
   A high res picture of the grade graphic is available here: https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/assets/img/2024/11/17322928881586848.jpg
2. Friends of the Earth’s Programme for Faster and Fairer Climate Action 2025-2030 is online here: https://www.friendsoftheearth.ie/assets/files/pdf/programme_for_faster_and_fairer_climate_action_2025-2030.pdf
3. The five planks of that programme are:
   1. Government leadership, action and accountability, nationally and internationally
   2. Warm homes for all with lower bills and no fossil fuels
   3. Clean, affordable renewable energy for people, not data centers and big tech
   4. Affordable, reliable, and accessible fossil-free transport
   5. A fair deal for family farmers to feed Ireland and restore nature
4.  The judges scored nine party manifestos against the policies that would deliver those outcomes and also more generally whether the manifesto demonstrated a high-level commitment to climate action, detailed policies and specific funding commitments, integrated climate policies across other political priorities, and showed a willingness to confront the uncomfortable but necessary issues required to deliver climate action in line with our 2030 commitments across the sectors represented in those five priorities: Government leadership, homes, energy, transport and food.
5. The judges detailed scores by party and category are as follows:
   
6. The independent assessment, coordinated by UCD’s Earth Institute and commissioned by Friends of the Earth, was carried out by:
   

   Dr. Cara Augustenborg, Assistant Professor in Environmental Policy at UCD

   Prof. Hannah Daly, Professor in Sustainable Energy at University College Cork

   Prof. Mary Murphy, Professor of Sociology at Maynooth University