The Party Politics of Climate Change in Ireland

Political parties play important representative, governing, and leadership roles in society, and therefore, they have crucial contributions to make in addressing the climate crisis. This chapter provides an introduction to how parties and their representatives have responded to and influenced climate politics and policy in Ireland. It does so, first, with a review of research on the party politics of climate change in Ireland; second, with an overview of how the parties’ responses have developed on some important climate policy issues since the late 1990s; and, third, by identifying ways in which the case of Ireland can contribute to knowledge on the party politics of climate change more generally. In doing so, it highlights several ways in which Ireland is substantively and theoretically an interesting case.