Professor John FitzGerald:

If I may backtrack on costings, the vast bulk of expenditure in heating and transport on meeting the targets set out for the sectors will be undertaken by the private sector. It will be people deciding to buy an electric car because it is the cheap option, providing the carbon price is right. These people would have spent money on a car anyway. On heating, if the carbon price is right, people will spend money on insulating their homes and, in the period to 2050, will be better off as a result. Expenditure and investment will be higher but their outgoings on energy in the subsequent 20 years will be much lower. The issue is that the bulk of expenditure on a spreadsheet will be taken by households deciding on their car and house in a way that will save money; that is on a spreadsheet but behaviour is different. I have done it myself and it saved me a lot of money, but there was also the hassle of doing it. That is where the State needs to target resources. One must give people a push and make it easy. One issue in the plan, which is a reflection of these problems, is how to do it at scale. If I had to go out and find a builder and engineer to retrofit my house, there would be hassle and uncertainty about doing it, whereas if the State managed to push the building industry into developing expertise and ramping it up so that it might come into an estate and offer to do everyone's house at a knockdown price, and the local authority guaranteed it would be done efficiently, there would be much greater take-up.

The State needs measures which will give this a push. That is where there is a gap in that further work needs to be done. The bulk of expenditure in these areas will be undertaken by the private sector but State intervention will be needed to give it a push.