Enhanced accountability mechanisms for driving climate action: an Irish case study

Many governments around the world are failing to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement. Efforts to reduce carbon emissions to levels that will keep warming under 1.5 degrees have two components: first setting ambitious goals, and then meeting them. Parliaments play a critical role in the first step by passing legislation requiring carbon reductions. And, they also have a sometimes overlooked role in the second step through legislating oversight and accountability mechanisms such as parliamentary questions, reporting requirements, committee hearings, and granting private entities the ability to take legal action against the government. Parliamentary innovation, which refers to the deliberate introduction of new practices, procedures, technologies, or institutional arrangements within legislative bodies aimed at enhancing their functionality, legitimacy, and responsiveness, can connect with both the legislative and oversight roles. This paper looks at parliamentary innovation in the area of accountability, examining various types of accountability mechanisms, classified into bureaucratic, professional, legal, political, and social, and the reasoning of legislatures in choosing between them. It then examines their effectiveness in keeping governments on track in implementing their promises of climate action. We use Ireland as a case study of a country that has a strong climate act, but has struggled with making sufficient progress on implementation. Through review of documents from a legislative committee on climate change and semi-structured interviews with civil servants, elected officials and other stakeholders in Ireland, this qualitative study compares committee discussions of accountability mechanisms with what interviewees thought were most effective in practice. Results show that no accountability mechanisms or types stood out as being particularly effective over any of the others. What emerged as the most important elements of accountability were the cultural expectations within a department along with a combination of multiple accountability mechanisms that, when together, provide regular and frequent touchpoints to bring climate onto the political and journalistic agenda. This argues for an approach that does not rely heavily on any one accountability mechanism or type, but rather on the combination of professional, legal, social, and political accountability all acting together to create a ‘death by 1,000 cuts’ approach to making inaction more painful for a minister and civil servants than taking action on climate commitments. Even then, however, politicians ultimately feel most accountable to their role in representing today’s electorate and the interests the public prioritise most highly in the short term. The paper concludes with some thoughts on the interplay of accountability, climate action, and democracy, and whether innovations in accountability can strengthen both climate action and democratic governance. We interrogate the tension between representation and accountability in climate governance, and examine the enduring challenge of intergenerational justice in democratic systems across Europe.