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Climate Ireland Adaptation Network Working Group Reports
The Climate Ireland Adaptation Network is a practitioner network aimed at sharing expertise and creating learning opportunities around adaptation in Ireland, as well as improving the consistency of adaptation implementation.
The four working groups were established to enable participants to share their views, practices, and perspectives around key challenges for adaptation in Ireland. A primary goal of these CIAN working groups was to enhance communication between stakeholders, build stronger links across Ireland’s adaptation community, and provide a forum to discuss adaptation topics and identify practitioner needs and knowledge gaps. The final reports represent the consensus from discussions of members of the relevant working groups.
Working Group 1: Technical definitions underpinning resilience
Authors: Alan O'Connor, Annalisa Setti, AnnMaree Manley, Caitriona De Paor, Christopher Phillips, Colm O Looney, Conor Murphy, Cormac McKay, Dervala Leahy, Fintan McGrath, John Fingleton, Jonathan Chambers, Jordan Delmar, Kevin McCormick, Liz Wakefield, Lorcan Connolly, Marta Carrasco, Patrick Barrett, Paul McBride, Ronan Walsh, Suzanne Jackson, Ted McCormack, Tim Kavanagh
Download the full report here: CIAN Working Group 1 Report: Technical Definitions Underpinning Resilience
Working Group 1 explored the definitions and concepts that underpin climate resilience to support consistent planning and decision‑making across sectors. This report concludes that Ireland’s resilience planning must be supported by a better shared understanding of future scenarios, and the setting of trajectories for climate. Defined trajectories provide a common basis for decision-making, investment, and long-term planning, ensuring that resilience strategies are aligned with scientific scenarios and future risks. The working group calls for a national resilience goal which incorporates reference trajectories into national frameworks, sectoral plans, and local authority strategies. Building on this foundation, resilience should then be supported by clear definitions, measurable objectives, and inclusive frameworks that reflect justice, vulnerability, and community capacity.
Working Group 2: Just resilience
Authors: Alan O'Connor, Ann Marie Crosse, Anna Davies, Anne-Marie Bell, Bronwyn Hall McLoughlin, Caitriona De Paor, Charlie Coakley, Christopher Phillips, Cian Gill, Cormac McKay, Darren Clarke, Eadaoin Healy, Gregory Murray, Helena Fitzgerald, Jodie Colgan, Johanna Varghese, John Enright, Jonathan Chambers, Jordan Delmar, Joseph McNamara, Kevin McCormick, Kritika Singhal, Laura Dixon, Liz Wakefield, Lorcan Connolly, Miguel Trejo Rangel, Naomi Blumlein, Paul McBride, Paula Lynch, Ronan Walsh, Suzanne Jackson, Tim Kavanagh, Tracey Skillington
Download the full report here: CIAN Working Group 2 Report: Just Resilience
Working Group 2 focused on clarifying what “just resilience” means in the Irish context and how principles of fairness, participation, and access can be embedded in adaptation planning and decision-making. This report concludes that Ireland’s resilience strategy must embed justice and equity at every stage with community knowledge informing planning to create meaningful engagement. The working group report calls for establishing national and local resilience objectives linked to vulnerability assessments; integrating equity into technical standards, funding criteria, and foresight tools; scaling health-oriented adaptation; building local capacity; and improving communication strategies.
Working Group 3: Resilient decision-making
Authors: Alan O'Connor, Alice Taylor, Andrea Lennon, Ann Marie Crosse, Avril Challoner, Bryn Canniffe, Caitriona De Paor, Charlie Coakley, Christopher Phillips, Clare Lee, Colm O Looney, Cormac McKay, Dearbhala Ledwidge, Dervala Leahy, Eadaoin Healy, Eddie Meegan, Eugene Farrell, Fernanda De Souza Rocha, Grainne Kennedy, Mohammad Ibrahim Khalil, John Enright, John McNally, Jonathan Chambers, Jordan Delmar, Joseph McNamara, Julie Clarke, Kevin Lynch, Kevin McCormick, Kiran Vargaonkar, Kritika Singhal, Liz Wakefield, Lorcan Connolly, Mary Teehan, Maurice Ryan, Niamh Kennedy, Ray Nesbitt, Ronan Walsh, Sarah Cunningham, Suzanne Jackson, Suzanne Wylde, Thais Camolesi Guimaraes, Tim Kavanagh, Tom Cronin
Download the full report here: CIAN Working Group 3 Report: Resilient Decision-Making
Working Group 3 focused on resilient decision-making, and how frameworks are developed and applied across sectors and scales to support effective, long-term adaptation planning. The report concludes that Ireland’s climate adaptation strategy must evolve into a clear, inclusive, and future-ready framework. This requires coordinated governance across national, sectoral, and local levels, supported by scenario-based planning and justice principles embedded in all sectors. The working group calls for integrating reference warming trajectories into planning frameworks and updating infrastructure standards to reflect projected climate impacts. Building capacity within local authorities and small organisations is critical to enable long-term, locally driven adaptation.
Working Group 4: Resilience indicator development
Authors: Aisling Doyle, Alan O'Connor, Alice Taylor, Annalisa Setti, Brian Crowley, Caitriona De Paor, Charlie Coakley, Christopher Phillips, Conor Galvin, Corrado Grappiolo, Colm Bates, Cormac McKay, Darren Clarke, David Dodd, Eadaoin Healy, Elaine Keenan, Eugene Farrell, Fintan McGrath, Geraldine Ann Cusack, Gregory Murray, Ibrahim Khalil, John Paul Corkery, Jonathan Chambers, Jordan Delmar, Julie Clarke, Kevin McCormick, Kiran Vargaonkar, Liam Heaphy, Liz Wakefield, Lorcan Connolly, Mary Teehan, Ronan Walsh, Seosamh O’Laoi, Stephen Flood, Suzanne Jackson, Tim Kavanagh, Tom Cronin, Thais Camolesi Guimaraes
Download the full report here: CIAN Working Group 4 Report: Resilience Indicator Development
Working Group 4 focused on mechanisms to develop meaningful, scalable indicators to track resilience across sectors. The report concludes that Ireland’s approach to climate resilience would benefit from a national indicator hierarchy to track adaptation progress across sectors, covering climate hazards, impacts, implementation, and outcomes. Working Group 4 calls for standardised indicators aligned with national and EU frameworks, supported by cross‑sector collaboration, technical training for local authorities, and cross‑border, all‑island coordination. Equity must be embedded in indicator frameworks through clear justice metrics and inclusive stakeholder engagement.
Focus on Adaptation Report 2025
Ireland continued to make progress in climate change adaptation across policy, governance, planning, climate services, risk assessment, and research through 2025.
This report summarises relevant national and international developments in climate adaptation in 2025, including new and updated Sectoral Adaptation Plans, publication of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment, completion of TRANSLATE-2 and publication of a report on funding climate adaption in Ireland.
Focus on Adaptation Report 2024
Authors: EPA Climate Services Unit (Dr. Conor Quinlan, Katherine Dooley, Dervla McAuley), Dr. Chris Phillips, Dr. Camila Tavares Pereira, Mary Frances Rochford, Dr. Tara Higgins
Download the full report here: EPA Focus on Adaptation Report 2024
This report highlights recent progress in Ireland’s climate change adaptation, covering areas including policy, governance, planning, climate services, risk assessment, and research. As climate change continues to impact Ireland, adapting to this new reality is essential for the country’s future resilience. Building this resilience requires a coordinated approach that includes strong institutions and governance, adequate resources, legal and regulatory support, regular vulnerability assessments, and climate action planning across national, sectoral, and local levels. Access to information and enhanced capacity for adaptation are also critical.
Ireland is making strides in adaptation, particularly in policy, governance, climate services, risk assessment, planning, regulation, research, and public engagement. This report details and summarises key developments that support these efforts.
Implementation of Climate Adaptation Indicators: Lessons Learned from the Transport Sector
Authors: Dr. Ned Dwyer, Dr. Denise McCullagh and Dr. Billy O’Keeffe
Download the full report here: Implementation of Climate Adaptation Indicators
Appropriate adaptation or resilience indicators provide a means to measure and quantify the status of climate adaptation, and the progress of adaptation actions in producing desired outcomes. These indicators help to define an existing situation and to track changes or trends over time. They can provide, for example, the degree of development or implementation of a policy process, or quantitative information, such as the total seasonal rainfall in a given area, or number of road bridges strengthened to withstand extreme weather events.
Through a co-development process with TII, 43 adaptation indicators were identified and agreed with TII management, that are both suitable and implementable for national roads and light rail; this comprised 19 climatological, 6 impact, 11 implementation and 8 outcome indicators.
The purpose of the project extended beyond the identification of the indicators to also identify and capture key lessons for the widespread development and adoption of adaptation indicators. 14 key lessons were identified and form the basis for six recommendations for developing climate adaptation indicators for national reporting.
Climate risk assessment approaches in the financial and commercial sectors
Authors: Dr. Christopher Phillips, Dr. Lydia Cumiskey, Cathal O’Mahony, Dr. Camila Tavares Pereira, Catriona Iulia Reid, Dr. Conor Quinlan, Dervla McAuley, Mary Frances Rochford
Download the full report here: Climate risk assessment approaches in the financial and commercial sectors
Focusing on lessons learned, the study explores the impact of guiding policies, legislation, and regulations on climate adaptation within the finance and commercial sectors, both internationally and nationally. The research includes a comprehensive literature review, emphasising the pivotal role of the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD), Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and EU taxonomy frameworks in guiding climate risk assessment practices in relevant sectors.
The study included interviews conducted with 20 individuals in roles related to sustainability, risk management, and Environment, Social and Governance (ESG) within 11 diverse organisations spanning finance, commercial, consultancy, and climate services sectors. The interview topics were structured around three primary themes: current practices, policy and legislation, and climate actions.
The insights derived from this study focusing on the financial and commercial sectors, will inform the development of the National Climate Change Risk Assessment (NCCRA) methodology and risk assessment criteria.