Ms Sharon Finegan:

I agree completely with Senator O'Reilly. With regard to the distinction between existing measures and additional measures, in some ways these phrases are confusing in themselves.

Additional measures give the sense of being forward-looking or future-oriented, whereas it is just a quantification of existing Government policy, albeit out to 2030. Nonetheless, it does not reference that greater level of ambition. For anybody dipping their toe into the climate area, trying to understand the distinction between existing measures and additional measures is not simple but I hope we have given a good explanation of it.

The Senator said that the projections have not yet covered the ambition in the Bill. I wish to make clear how we do our business methodologically speaking. That will not happen until we have a suite of measures that are intended to support a reduction to that level. At that point, they would be factored into the projection process. It is not the setting of the ambition that triggers the work from our perspective. It is the articulation of the measures and policies that the Government identifies as bringing us to it. Those are two important distinctions and I thank the Senator for raising them.

The Senator had a question about diversification, whether land use is being quantified and how much is being converted to reach our targets. She also spoke about Ireland's reputation. I made a point in this regard in the opening statement. It is a message that the EPA has been reiterating for some time. I would also mention the opportunities that exist for the sector. A more diverse and resilient sector based on some of the principles which are central to decarbonisation, such as circular economy principles and reductions in food waste, will bring positive opportunities with the transition we envisage. The potential expansion into nature-based production systems, tillage, horticulture and organic production all offer opportunities to access new markets, create new jobs and so on. While the outlook for the performance indicators for the environment, if I could describe them as such, is not optimistic currently, with the introduction of the new policies that are identified in the climate action plan, we expect to see that dial shifting. Full implementation is key, however.

Mr. Treacy might be able to talk us through diversification and land use quantification. The Senator may be talking about how much land is required to create the sink that will address the imbalance that exists. I think that is what she was getting at. This comes back to the point about land-use change in forestry being very complex and interconnected. Measures such as converting a number of hectares from one use to another does not necessarily produce a right answer because of the interconnectedness of it. Mr. Treacy may be able to expand on some of the methodological issues there.

The Senator spoke about the 1 million EVs and the issues associated with car culture and the urban sprawl. This is a methodological question when thinking about some of the policy measures that might give a bang for our buck in terms of transport-oriented design and thinking about how the planning system interacts. Those types of measures are more challenging to put into a system to quantify where we are likely to get to. Mr. Treacy can talk through the methodology relating to the 1 million EVs. It assumes that we have 1 million cars that have switched from being fossil-fuel based. We look at the measures that have been given by Government and we work them through the model, using the types of parameters that are set out at EU level. I ask Mr. Treacy to pick up some of those more tactical points.