I HATE to be the bearer of bad news, but Ireland’s latest mid-year energy data confirms we’re really struggling to make a real dent in our climate change commitments. The SEAI’s October report shows that in the first half of 2025, electricity sector emissions stayed flat, transport emissions dropped just 2%, and we’re projected to overshoot our first carbon budget (2021-2025) across multiple sectors.

The electricity sector is heading for 40.8 tonnes of CO2, 800,000 tonnes over its ceiling. Transport is tracking toward 57.7m tonnes, 3.7m over budget. Even with record biofuel blending (8.5% biodiesel, 6.5% bioethanol), road diesel demand only fell 3.2%.

Meanwhile, we’re increasingly dependent on imported energy. Net electricity imports hit a record 17.1% of supply. Imported gas now accounts for 82% of our total supply, up from 79% last year. Renewable electricity generation was essentially flat at 49.2% of generation, barely changed from 49% in 2024.

Like the rest of you, I feel overwhelmed and a bit confused by all these numbers, the scale of which is almost impossible to fathom. Even the bill for missing the targets, which is anywhere between €8 billion and €28 billion in carbon credits, feels hard to actually relate to.

Luckily, for a bit of framing, the final episode of WTF with Marc Maron, one of my favourite podcasts of all time, aired during the week and featured an interview with former President Barack Obama. It was almost like a throwback to a more hopeful era.

At one point, Obama spoke about his daughters’ friends, some of whom felt the climate situation was hopeless. Obama, soberly but optimistically, reminded the listeners that every half a percent of warming reductions will likely help billions of people. So even if we are very likely to run into some trouble in the years ahead, we still have the power to mitigate it and that is worth fighting for. Yes we can.

The new ‘Iron Lady’

JAPAN elected Sanae Takaichi as prime minister on Tuesday, making her the country’s first female leader. Takaichi is a hardline conservative described by some as far-right, and an ultranationalist member of Nippon Kaigi, which opposes same-sex marriage and regularly visits the Yasukuni Shrine honouring war criminals. She cites Margaret Thatcher as a role model and has earned the ‘Iron Lady’ nickname. A protege of assassinated prime minister Shinzo Abe, she wants to revise Japan’s pacifist constitution and double down on ‘Abenomics’ based on aggressive monetary policy, flexible fiscal policy, and structural reforms.

In somewhat better news, she’s also a heavy metal drummer and Kawasaki motorcycle enthusiast, and serves as a carer for her husband after a stroke. People are almost always more interesting and complex than the black and white, left or right constraints of political labelling would suggest.

However, in her victory speech, Takaichi said she would ‘throw out the term “work-life balance”’, and instead ‘work and work and work’. My heart goes out to the overworked middle managers of the Land of the Rising Sun….

Great day for Munster

AT Croke Park on Saturday, Munster didn’t just beat Leinster 31-14, they gave them a belting for the ages. Facthna had a ticket for me for the Croker encounter but I had a family ‘do’ to attend, so had to content myself with viewing sneaky snippets via the TG4 app on
my phone.

It was great to see a red revival after all these years. Jack Crowley’s relentless kicking game attacked Leinster’s vulnerable rush defence even when early attempts failed. When most teams would abandon the plan, Munster doubled down. Tadhg Beirne was almost unplayable, turning over possession like a man possessed.

The unfortunate twist for Ireland is as follows: Munster had only two players in Farrell’s squad for the Autumn Internationals with most of Ireland’s team wearing blue last Saturday. Now Farrell faces selection questions before Soldier Field against a battle-hardened All Blacks side fresh from one of the most competitive Rugby Championships in memory.

Finally …  good news

THANK God for Alan Partridge. After a year in Saudi Arabia ‘nursing his wounds’ following his BBC firing, he’s back with a self-funded documentary (sponsored by Flench and Sun Tanning Centres) examining ‘the mental health of the nation.’

How Are You? It’s Alan (Partridge) is classic opportunism.He’s jumped on the mental health bandwagon to make himself relevant again. But the genius is that while his motives are cynical, he’s not entirely faking it. As Steve Coogan puts it, Alan ‘genuinely believes there’s something going on’ after his own wobble. The show wisely avoids diving too deep into actual issues, instead delivering Alan-isms while using him to explore difficult subjects. It’s perfect satire for the Peak Mental Health era where everyone has a mindfulness app and a generational trauma podcast.

A welcome respite from all the bad news.