Environmental regulation, shifting conditions and the strange movement of reason Last week, the Irish Times carried a range of stories and opinions about climate impacts, infrastructure delays and environmental regulation. It raises questions about what common sense is, where it comes from, and what makes one version of common sense more authoritative than another. On
Irish climate governance has not emerged from nowhere. In other words, it looks at the world from somewhere. Its origins extend well beyond the arrival of climate as a policy issue in the 1990s. It is a view that seems to have emerged and continues to evolve through a chameleon-like socio-economic structure that preserves elements
Addressing this question through the lens of Irish climate governance offers a salient case in point. For decades, it has cycled through repeated commitments to greater moral responsibility and targeted action, only to discover that the chosen means are not enough. In the meantime, we have reached the threshold of a world that is on
This essay is not a view from nowhere. I’ve spent decades working with governance systems as a sustainability consultant, a strategic adviser, a sectoral representative and now as a researcher. I am a long-term participant in the processes I’m now trying to understand. That position is part of the argument: because what I want to
If climate governance is operating at the limits of what it can know, then this question follows: what kind of judgment is required in that situation? Much of governance is built on the idea that better knowledge leads to better decisions. Clarify the problem. Reduce uncertainty. Identify the optimal course of action. This works when
Across climate governance, there is a persistent assumption that with enough data, better models, and stronger coordination, the problem can and will be sufficiently understood and managed. This assumption is always in the background, and it shapes how issues are defined, how evidence is treated, and what kinds of responses are considered legitimate. Beyond complexity