Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 18 January 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action

Carbon Budgets: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Conor Ó Raghallaigh:

On the overarching Government approach, when you stand back and look at it, the enactment of the Bill last year and the climate plan process does give that overarching approach with the structures in place to try to co-ordinate this. We have a very active Cabinet subcommittee on the climate that met, I think, eight times in 2021 and a senior officials group meeting under that. That is all trying to give such a coherent overarching approach to climate action. The extent of the challenge has been brought together in the climate action plans that are going to be further developed over this year and will need to reflect the sectoral emissions ceilings and the overall economy-wide carbon budget that is put in place. Deputy Bruton alluded to it but this is a huge challenge for the system and for Departments and the public sector generally, as well as broader society. There are going to be issues and there are going to be things we need to explore further. In the climate action plan for this year, we have a number of actions trying to look at impediments to delivery around the system and looking at capacity constraints in various Departments and the broader public sector. All that work will feed into a closer a co-ordination of effort by Government but the structures are in place to provide that.

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