Professor John FitzGerald:

There are quite a number of questions there. I could work with the definition of 2050. I would interpret it in the way the Deputy suggests. I just want to be certain the legal eagles will interpret it that way. We must get to net zero on long-lived gases, in particular carbon dioxide, but I would interpret it to allow a split target. Of course, we have not mentioned land use. A huge way of dealing with the biogenic methane, however, is to offset it by changes of land use.

The point I make about imperfect knowledge is an interesting one, and we do not know what we are signing up to for 2030. The way I see it is that the Government sets its 2030 target and we go off, because this work has not been done and, as the Deputy said, we have imperfect knowledge, and beaver away and we produce the carbon budgets. The carbon budgets may not be sufficiently attractive or they may bring such major problems that the Oireachtas may decide to modify them. Its role is to determine the feasibility. There would, I suppose, be a problem where having enshrined the 2030 target in the legislation, if no carbon budget can get the Government to 2030 in a way that is acceptable to a majority of the Oireachtas. It is up the Oireachtas then to change the target if it finds it is unacceptable. That is not a satisfactory answer, however, and I cannot give the committee a money-back guarantee on this because I do not know. We have not done the work so we do not know what major changes it will require in Irish society. We, the experts, do not have to consider the political acceptability of it. The Oireachtas must determine that.

The Deputy referred to the State being open to litigation. Litigation can say the Government has got to have plans in place to do the job, and the climate action plan it brought in last year delivers on that. If this ends up in the courts, however, then we have failed.

I will leave that to the lawyers.

On the 25 criteria, the first three or four are appropriate, as is the cost-effectiveness one. De facto,in making our recommendations, we have taken account of a range of other matters. For example, the health co-benefits and biodiversity co-benefits of quite a number of the steps we have recommended, and that the Government is implementing through policy, will not only be good for climate change but also improve human health through reducing emissions in urban areas. They could also be good for biodiversity. While they have not been part of our obligation, we have considered them.

Once they have to be considered, that is, once legislation has to be defined, somebody could be subjected to judicial review. Every one of them, therefore, has to be documented and it has to be shown that what the legislation requires has been done. The inflexibility is posed by naming everything, rather than by setting out the key parameters for the council. The parameters are much broader for the Minister, the Government and the Oireachtas. They have to consider the acceptability and a range of other issues. They should try to keep council focused in such a way that it will not end up in judicial review complications, and make it easier for us to provide our advice. We are mindful, as I expect the next council will be, of the broader issues for society. That is why, in our recommendations for major changes in agricultural policy, we are mindful that the political system has to get buy-in and implement them. Perhaps we should not be considering the acceptability but we do so in our recommendations.