Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The levels do not seem to match. We are adding 75 cent on natural gas at the moment, versus the increase in carbon tax. If that is the case, I accept that. I will come back to Professor FitzGerald.

I was very surprised about the letter the council sent to the Department. I was not just surprised by the content of the letter but its timing. The council is an independent body responsible for reviewing policy. The timing of the letter was very strange, politically, just before a statement, and it did not seem to reflect the council's own review, which is what we are discussing here, the annual review of the Climate Change Advisory Council. In the sections on energy, there were not lengthy opinions on the role of gas and continued gas exploration. That was not something that had been analysed in detail but seemed to be closer to the letter from 2015. It was said the combustion of all known reserves of natural gas globally would not in itself exceed 1.5°C. Obviously, any one measure is not enough but the key concern is that it contributes to the overall level.

The other issues that were mentioned were carbon capture and storage. The evidence we heard last week is that methane has a quicker rate of absorption, that, in fact, it can narrow the period that we have and that carbon dioxide has a longer lag time in the context of absorption. Are we effectively shortening the window of time by taking this approach? It is not a bridge, rather it shortens the road we are on.

First of all, the science on methane is different from that relating to CO2. It is currently converted at a particular rate but methane disappears from the atmosphere in ten to 12 years, whereas CO2 is there forever. That makes carbon dioxide the primary focus. The metric treats them as equivalent for the 2030 targets. I refer the committee to the range of caveats in our letter as to how the gas is used.

Deputy Pearse Doherty asked about the issue of timing at a meeting of the Committee on Budgetary Oversight and the Taoiseach and the Minister have also asked about it. There seemed to be a broad political interest in answering that question. In terms of preparation for the meeting, because the council have very scarce resources, I did not get the secretariat to prepare a paper covering all the other evidence but we are aware of other evidence. I dispute the suggestion that everything turns on the briefing note because that was a briefing note on one set of evidence. We made a considered decision on this and there are caveats to it.