Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir:

The latest published information we have on the marginal abatement cost curve is the analysis we did for the national mitigation plan. I am happy to send that to the committee.

We do not have specific research activity within MaREI on solar power. It is not one of the technologies we focus on. We see it emerging in our results, especially on the electricity side as one of the options as the price of solar power comes down.

I mentioned wind and solar several times. Part of our goal in presenting to the committee today is to show that wind and solar are important, but some of the other elements do not get the same level of discussion. That was where the emphasis lay.

I was asked about the public health benefits. We are working with colleagues in China, where air pollution is a major issue. In China, a total of 1 million deaths per year are associated with air pollution. We are working with colleagues who do similar modelling to bring air pollution into our scenarios. This will enable us to assess not only the implications for climate action but for air pollution as well.

As for public transport and cycling, essentially our model finds least-cost solutions. We have done some analysis but it is rather difficult to find a least-cost solution between public and private transport. If we simply put the data into the model, it would immediately go to public transport because that involves moving a larger number of people. However, it does not take into account the value that people place on their time if they are waiting at, or walking to, bus stops etc. We have done some analysis on this previously, and I can share it with the committee. We have not done anything precisely on cycling and walking and the other benefits.