Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir:

As suggested by the Chairman, I am happy to field questions. In terms of the challenges on the energy side, I will be drawing on Dr. Hannah Daly. On agriculture, I will leave it to Dr. Hanrahan and Dr. Donnellan to decide who would like to respond. I will ask Dr. Styles to respond on the land use question.

I would first like to talk about the process we undertook. We did explore the impact of different trajectories on different sectors. As members will know, our obligation did not extend to the sectoral emissions ceilings, which is a follow-on task to the task of agreeing the carbon budgets. In terms of informing the impacts, we explored the analysis. Deputy Bruton is correct in his comments on the balance question, namely, that different sectors have different challenges and different opportunities. It is very clear from the analysis we undertook, and this links in to the first part of the Deputy's question, that achieving the 51% target the Oireachtas has already agreed, very strongly, will require transformations across all sectors of society. It is very much a full and complete transformation. It is worth bearing in mind that that 51% ambition over a decade is the second highest ambition in the world in terms of climate action. The Oireachtas is to be commended on that ambition, but clearly that brings challenges across all sectors of society.

The Deputy asked whether the challenge is behavioural, market, technological or policy related. Again, it is system wide. We are talking about a complete transformation. If you look at the graph and the difference in the two trajectories in figure 2, you can see the difference between what is in the current policy mix and what is required in terms of this additional step change to achieve the carbon budgets required.

As for the implications of the 51% reduction on land use, the timing of this challenged us because the clarity came late in the committee's deliberations and proceedings. We were fortunate to have Dr. Styles's input from an early stage in the proceedings, so we had a good sense of the implications regarding land use.

I will leave it there. Dr. Daly might talk about her sense of the challenges on the energy side.