Mr. Ken Cleary:

The figures are €3.5 billion to €8.1 billion. That estimate is based on the impact of previous climate action plans. There are two factors - quantity and price. Quantity might be how much we fall short of our target, and one has to look at various scenarios on that. The scenarios we looked at in this paper were the EPA’s assessment of Climate Action Plan 2021 in terms of with existing measures and with additional measures. The EPA found that in Climate Action Plan 2021, there would be a shortfall to 2030 based on its assessment of those policies. Climate Action Plan 2021 has obviously been updated with Climate Action Plan 2023 and will be further updated with the 2024 action plan. That is on the quantity side of it.

On the price side of the equation, as the Secretary General noted, it is very difficult to attach a realistic value to it. Regarding the compliance system that will apply at European level, we will have to purchase from member states that over-achieve versus their targets. It is not dependent on anything objective, rather, it is dependent on the relative progress made by other member states and how they might choose to price it.

We put price into this equation by looking at the price of an ETS allowance on the basis there was no other objective figure we could refer to. That is how we produced a range of €3.5 billion to €8.1 billion. As I said, there are many caveats with those figures. The point the Secretary General made is that there is obviously no compliance cost should we achieve our targets and that is what Government policy works and aims towards.