All policies / Industry / CAPMF_FOSSIL_LICENCES
Restriction of new oil and gas exploration licences
Instrument affecting the Industry sector, using a practice regulation mechanism; in force since 2021.
About this policy
The 2021 Climate Act restricted the granting of new petroleum authorisations for oil and gas exploration and extraction. Existing authorisations were preserved, and their holders may seek successor authorisations under the statutory saving provisions.
About this type of instrument: regulation of practices and activities
Some emissions come from many scattered farm or waste processes, or from long-lived investments. Here, setting rules on practices can be easier to monitor and enforce than pricing each tonne.
- Directly targets the emitting process
- Relatively easy to verify compliance
- Addresses non-CO₂ gases that are hard to price
- Limited flexibility in how abatement is achieved
- Enforcement over many small actors is resource-intensive
- Supply-side restrictions may shift rather than reduce emissions
Measurement in this dataset. Agriculture and waste practices have no direct OECD stringency indicator, so implementation uses assumed timing. Licensing restrictions use the OECD fossil-fuel extraction ban indicator. Bindingness is scored 1.0 (mandatory rule).
Year by year
Filled markers use a matched OECD score; hollow markers use assumed timing. Shaded bands show the policy's status. Select a year on the chart or the slider to see how its intensity is built up.
Data-quality notes
Methodological notes recorded for this series, grouped by theme.
Scoring conventions
- The unweighted equal-weight index remains positive before the policy starts; use the gated version for timing analysis.
- Bindingness is a normative score from the study rubric, not a measure of observed compliance.
- Coverage is an ordinal scope score, not a measured share of activity or emissions.
Policy-specific notes
- Applies to new licences, not to all existing production.
- Upstream extraction is placed in the industry sector, although it is not manufacturing.
Timing assumptions
- The policy has no reported end date; its status after the reporting date is reconstructed as continuing.
Selection context
- Policies were selected using recent (2024–2030) assessments, which can introduce retrospective selection bias.
Sources
- OECD. Climate Actions and Policies Measurement Framework (CAPMF) database, Ireland, 1990–2023. https://data-explorer.oecd.org/vis?df[ag]=OECD.ENV.EPI&df[id]=DSD_CAPMF@DF_CAPMF (accessed 25 September 2026)
- Government of Ireland. Oil and Gas Exploration and Production. https://www.gov.ie/en/department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment/policy-information/oil-and-gas-exploration-and-production/ (accessed 25 September 2026)