Ms Marie Donnelly:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to discuss the Climate Change Advisory Council’s proposals for carbon budgets for this decade and a provisional proposal for the first five years of the next decade.

I submitted a document to the committee before this meeting. I do not propose to read it because I hope that it has been possible to circulate it to members. I will briefly outline what the council did regarding its preparation of this proposal. We were strongly guided by the legislation and in that context, our key objective was to achieve a pathway to the national climate objective of net zero emissions by 2050. We complied with the relevant regulations in this regard. The main Act commenced in July and the regulations were adopted in October. That led us to look at how we could make proposals that would achieve the first legal milestone, namely, a 51% reduction in emissions by 2030. To do that, the council based its considerations on the science in this regard. We examined the UN and Paris climate agreements, considered the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC, report that came out in August and used the most recent scientific data from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA.

All that material fed into our consideration of several other criteria. Those included, for example, biodiversity, land use, land-use change and forestry, LULUCF, and biogenic methane considerations. In addition, we looked at what kind of impact a carbon budget would have on issues such as, for example, employment, the attractiveness of the State for inward investment, the competitiveness of the State and, ultimately, climate justice in the context of Ireland and its place in the world. Underpinning all those considerations was an ongoing thread of awareness and sensitivity regarding the importance of a just transition in the context of the journey on which we are now embarking. It will be seen that this aspect is referred to repeatedly in our text. There is an ongoing concern in this regard, which means that it is important to ensure that people who are more vulnerable are not left behind and that they are not left to carry an unfair burden during this transition.

All these considerations took place over several months and led us to making a proposal for three carbon budgets. The first one is for 2021 to 2025. It is a carbon budget ceiling for the maximum amount of emissions that Ireland can make during that five-year period, and the amount proposed is 295 Mt CO2eq. For the second carbon budget from 2026 to 2030, the figure proposed is 200 Mt CO2eq, and then for the third, provisional, budget running from 2031-2035, the proposed amount is 151 Mt CO2eq. We put those figures into perspective regarding what it means for reductions over those five-year periods. In the first five-year period, it means that in the context of the overall figure of 295 Mt CO2eq our emissions would reduce, on average, by 4.8% annually. The trajectory of reductions would then become steeper for the second part of this decade, with the target increasing to 8.3% annually. The level of reductions would then move back down to 3.5% annually for the first part of the next decade.

As we underlined when we made this proposal, however, these numbers and the balance of effort were not devised to give a soft ride or to delay action. On the contrary, these proposals were developed to allow for immediate and urgent action, primarily in the area of investment, in order that such investment in the first five-year period would deliver reductions in emissions in the second five-year period. If we do not get the prerequisite investments and activities done now, then we will not be able to achieve the level of reductions in emissions required in the second five years.

Rather than going through everything in this context, I will highlight two specific areas in this respect where urgency is paramount. The first area is, of course, electricity. Electricity is a key part of our decarbonisation journey in Ireland for several reasons. We are fortunate that we have natural resources which allow us to move away from fossil fuel-based electricity generation. We can use wind and solar energy resources and, in time, we will be able to use our marine resources as well, to produce our own electricity using our own natural resources. That will allow us to substitute the approximately €5 billion to €8 billion that we currently spend annually importing fossil fuels, including for electricity generation.

We cannot reap those benefits, though, unless we make the required investments now. In several areas, those investments are time-sensitive, not only because it would mean that we could reduce the amount of emissions in the electricity sector itself, but equally because the electricity sector will also, over time, become the energy vector for heating and transport. Achieving the objectives and targets in those two sectors will mean that we will need to decarbonise the electricity sector.

The rate at which we are able to generate renewable electricity, be it onshore or offshore, is in a large measure a rate-limiting step on our capacity to achieve these carbon budgets. I know the Oireachtas is busy looking at the marine planning Bill and other provisions that will apply in that context.

I draw attention to the area of land use, land-use change and forestry, LULUCF. We spent quite a bit of time looking at that, primarily because for many member states in the European Union, their forests act as a sink and counterbalance emissions coming from land or other sectors. Unfortunately, the situation in Ireland is not so positive. We have CO2 emissions from our land of about 9.6 million tonnes. That is plus-emissions. On the minus side, we have a sink of about 4.8 million tonnes in our forests. Projecting forward to 2030, our forests are degrading and that sink will disappear between now and then. That places us in a difficult position for 2030. Above and beyond that, if we do not have a well-developed forest sink in place by 2050, it will be impossible to achieve net zero. As it takes time for trees to grow, the planting rate in this decade will determine our capacity to achieve net zero by 2050. It is an area of particular concern which we highlighted as part of the technical report. Urgent and immediate action and investment is required in that space now if we are to get the benefit for 2030 and 2050.

I wanted to highlight those issues but am happy to cover the other areas we looked at as part of the analysis we undertook in preparing the proposals for the carbon budget. I thank the committee.