Mr. Brian Carroll:

I will be brief. Deputy Bruton's first question was on whether we have changed our approach now that we have legally binding targets. While we now have legally binding targets for 2030 and 2050, by the time the spring comes these will have been refined further to provide legally binding economy-wide carbon budgets, which will be followed by sectoral emissions ceilings. That implicitly changes the approach because, for the first time, it will place legal obligations on the Ministers responsible for specific sectors.

That leads on to the second question about whether we have a central think tank. I will not repeat what Mr. Ó Raghallaigh said about the modelling capacities and so on that we have in place but, given those new legal accountabilities, there will an onus on each of the line Departments to start bringing forward policies to ensure they remain within their sectoral ceilings. There will be accountability to the committee and the Oireachtas in respect of that achievement. There is then a role for the climate Minister under the legislation, who will have to build his or her capacity to comment on policy efforts, with the support of the Departments of Public Expenditure and Reform, Taoiseach and Finance, and other Departments, because there is now a legal requirement on the Minister to make recommendations, potentially, to other Ministers, if they are off course.

The first thing to be said about the criteria for waiting is that the 2019 plan, as we know, was based on a marginal abatement cost curve. That was fully incorporated into the 2021 plan, but the step up in ambition was such that all the known and settled technologies we could identify, and the pace at which we could ramp them up, did not even get us the full way to the ambition. We have had to identify further areas that will need to be explored very intensively over the coming years to ensure we realise the full ambition over the decade. When we get the least-cost options and so on, other criteria will have to be brought to bear regarding social acceptability, fairness and practical issues around how quickly we can ramp up supply chains and get infrastructure delivered on the ground.

The final issue Deputy Bruton raised was on social consensus. That will be very challenging. The recent work by the EPA on measuring sentiment towards climate action indicated people believe climate change is taking place and want something to be done, but that is not actually translating into the actions or decisions that need to be taken necessarily being taken. There is a challenge for policy design and for engaging and communicating with people. Enduring structures for a national dialogue have been set out in the climate action plan 2021 with three elements - one is around local engagement and activation, where the local authorities will be very important, the second is a national convening a number of times a year, where key stakeholders feed in to policymaking and the third is around strategic communications, which will be led by the Department of the Taoiseach.