Green Politics in Ireland

With 95% of it's energy coming from imported fossil fuels, particularly oil and natural gas, and it's position as the third highest oil consuming nation in the EU, Ireland is uniquely vulnerable to ecological change.

In Green Politics in Ireland John Barry shows how the Republic's much vaunted status as the most globalised economy in the world has left it extremely exposed to geo-political vicissitudes in energy supplier countries such as Russia and Iraq. He documents how the brief period of unprecedented economic growth was fuelled by plentiful supplies of cheap hydrocarbons, lax planning and wilful disregard for the island's ecology.

Green Politics in Ireland shows the challenge facing the generation of Irish people now waking up to the hangover of the decade before and maps out the necessary transition to a sustainable, low carbon economy.