Dr. John O'Neill:

I will give a brief overview of the background to the proposals made in the document I circulated. Colleagues from the agency will talk about the more detailed figures for 2020.

The two proposals are for the new period, 2021 to 2030, and to replace the existing regulation on effort sharing. In October 2014 the European Council agreed an overall target of 40% by 2030 for the climate and energy package, compared to the figure for 1990. It is to cover three areas: the non-emissions trading system sector; the ETS; and, in respect of this discussion, the land use, land use change and forestry, LULUCF, proposal. The conclusions in 2014 set out the general guiding principles for what the non-effort sharing actions would be based on. This was mainly to see how the non-ETS sectors would be dealt with in line with a similar methodology used previously for the existing regulation. It was important that the target setting for member states be done on a gross domestic product, GDP, per capitabasis. It was also adjusted to reflect cost-effectiveness. The availability and use of flexibility mechanisms were to be considered, while the multiple use objectives of agriculture were to be considered in terms of land use and land use change.

The 40% reduction is the European Union's contribution under the Paris Agreement at United Nations level. The ratification process for the agreement is under way for Ireland and will be discussed in the Dáil on Thursday.

To some degree, the proposal on effort-sharing follows the work done on the existing regulation. It has a couple of new aspects, in terms of flexibility. A headline figure of 39% was given as an overall target based on GDP, but it adjusted downwards by 9 percentage points to reflect issues of cost-effectiveness. There is additional flexibility in the regulation, in respect of the LULUCF, of up to 5.6% of 2005 emissions, while there is a once-off transfer of credits from the ETS to the non-ETS sector up to the equivalent of 4% of 2005 emissions.

This might be an opportune time to hand over to the agency for an overview of the 2020 targets.