[ Cork City Development Plan 2022-2028, Section 15(2) Two-Year Progress Report ]
SDG 13: Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts
Targets under this goal relevant to the City Development Plan: Target 13.1 Strengthen resilience and adaptive capacity to climate-related hazards and natural disasters in all countries. Target 13.2
Integrate climate change measures into national policies, strategies and planning.
Cork City Council is a leader in sustainable development and climate action. It is the only local authority in Ireland with a dedicated Climate Action Committee of Council where elected members set ambitious policies and objectives for the city, which are then implemented by a senior level Climate Action Team. Continuing from this context, climate action is a cross cutting theme across the City Development Plan and relevant to all 9 Strategic Objectives. A climate-resilient, low-carbon city is one of the key strategic principles of the City Development Plan which recognises that climate action is key to the long-term planning required for Cork City to achieve its ambitious growth targets set out in Project Ireland 2040 (paragraph 2.17). The Plan’s central 15-minute city approach is essentially an urban response to the climate emergency. While chapter 5 in particular seeks to support the transition to a low-carbon, resilient city and contains objectives to integrate climate change measures into local policy, strategies and planning, objectives relating to climate action are threaded throughout the Plan. The primary vehicle for addressing climate action at a city-scale in Cork City is the Cork City Climate Action Plan (CAP) 2024-2029. While every local authority in Ireland is required to produce a plan that sets out how national policy will be implemented at the local level to deliver the national climate ambition of a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 and the achievement of net- zero emissions by 2050, Cork’s participation in the EU Mission on Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities provides a greater focus to achieve the more ambitious goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2030 (see SDG 17 for more detail on the EU Mission). The CAP sets out 129 actions grouped across five themes. There is strong alignment between the CAP and the City Development Plan (and the Cork City Council Corporate Plan). The City Development Plan supports the CAP and sets a vision and framework for the city’s sustainable development to accommodate the planned significant population growth over the next two decades. The CAP recognises that climate change and the environment are cross-cutting themes integrated in all the strategic principles for growth in the City Development Plan and notes the Plan’s various measures for mitigation and adaptation (page 16 of CAP). Numerous climate action measures were progressed under the City Development Plan, detailed in main body of the two-year progress report. Climate action was a founding principle of the City Development Plan from its inception at pre-draft stage; its influence and relevance in the Plan is clear. All third-tier plans and strategies prepared under the City Development Plan will include integrated climate action measures and objectives.
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