Professor John FitzGerald:

We have not laid that out, and it is one of my concerns. From the beginning, the Council wanted laid out, given our knowledge today of the technology, the cost-effective path to decarbonising Ireland by 2050, for example, that we would need to be at a certain point by 2030, that this would be the cost-effective way to proceed, which might involve doing more than we are committed to doing for 2030, the technologies involved, which would be so many electric cars and so much in the way of retrofit, and to have scenarios on that. The fact that we failed to do so is a problem.

It is interesting watching our equivalent in the United Kingdom and in Denmark. They have laid out this path and said what they need to do, the cost-effective way of doing it, and that it will not happen without a suite of other policies. The Danish Council on Climate Change is very clear on that. We need to set out the path, put in place evidence-based policies and say we need this policy on electric cars by 2025 or whatever. It is interesting that the United Kingdom has gone quite far on that. According to today's Financial Times, they are discussing the last stage - 2030 to 2050 - because they need to eliminate net carbon emissions. I believe 450 million tonnes are emitted in the United Kingdom. We emit 60 million plus tonnes. They can get down to 120 million tonnes by 2050, but that is not carbon neutral, so they are looking at how they can offset that 120 million tonnes by carbon capture and storage and a range of technologies. In the case of agriculture, because of the special nature of agriculture, it would require more afforestation, and they specifically mention flooding of wetlands and so on. They have laid out this path. The Danes have laid out this path, and they are now looking at the policies which would deliver on that path.