Linking the Irish Environment

Almost all environmental challenges facing the island of Ireland – and there are many – will ultimately require cooperation across the border. This has been recognised at government and policy level, and explicitly in the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement (GF/BA) where the environment is identified as a key area for cooperation.i Despite this, Northern Ireland and Ireland have developed (with some...

Brexit poses a significant threat to environmental governance on the island of Ireland due to regulatory divergence between Northern Ireland (UK) and the Republic of Ireland (EU). This divergence—differences in laws, standards, and implementation—risks creating regulatory gaps, enforcement issues, funding loss, economic imbalance, conservation problems, cross-border cooperation difficulties, and transboundary pollution. There are three main areas of divergence: Covered by...

The 2023 Linking the Irish Environment (LIE) Report examined cross-border environmental cooperation in Ireland and recommended creating an all-island civil society forum, which was held in 2024. The forum highlighted ongoing questions about environmental governance and the evolving complexities introduced by post-Brexit arrangements, particularly under the Windsor Framework. This short report aims to clarify these legal and political developments affecting...

This is an executive summary of the Linking the Irish Environment Report

The purpose of this short briefing is to provide an update on recent environmental developments in the aftermath of Brexit and to outline the actual or potential implications for the future of environmental governance in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Aims of the Project The aim of the ‘Linking the Irish Environment’ project is to examine how to enhance the ability of the environment sector across the island of Ireland to cooperate and engage on an all-island and cross-border basis to deal with shared environmental challenges, risks, and opportunities. This report has been commissioned by the Northern Ireland Environment Link...