Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister and his officials on the mammoth task of not only appraising the policy and developing the plan but also on the political challenge of getting various Departments with various priorities to come on board. I have a little experience of it and it is a mammoth task.

I want to pursue the issue of what is unallocated in the target setting. The Minister mentioned that the land-use sector is one with a high level of measures that are yet to be identified. Other than these, are the other measures that are yet to be identified spread fairly evenly throughout the various sectors and their targets? Have Departments at this stage identified measures which, in the event they do not fulfil the targets, be in reserve to correct a pattern that is going off trend?

I want to pursue the land use issue. If, as it seems, the starting point of land use is far more challenging than we thought, will this wash back into having to revise the targets in other sectors? I imagine that it is slower to make changes in land use compared to some of the other sectors. Is there a risk that difficulties in this sector could require higher targets being set in other areas? Land use was not included in some of our international targets. Is there some flexibility there?

As I understand it, at EU level, the emissions-trading sectors have ambitions of various percentages and the effort-sharing sectors are not large users. This distinction has not been made in setting the plan. How will the sectors interact? As I understand it, the thinking underpinning emissions trading is that high-carbon activities are moved to those countries that are most efficient at doing them. If we set targets for such a sector, will we miss out on the concept of an activity moving to a more carbon-efficient location? Will the fact we have not made this distinction handicap our freedom of manoeuvre in policy to a degree? Will it put us a little out of step with what will happen in the rest of Europe?

My next question is a special pleading. Will the Minister consider integrating the strategy and the approach being taken on the circular economy entirely into the climate action reporting framework? It is my strong belief that the circular economy offers a better framework for transformative change than simply the climate metric alone. On the one hand, it embraces biodiversity and many of the other environmental challenges while, on the other, it is a more inclusive approach in that it emphasises that different players need to work together to come up with solutions. It creates a unity of purpose. Sometimes the discussion on climate creates a finger-pointing debate. I see potential in the circular economy for every sector, whether it be food, construction, fast fashion or non-food retail. We can get a common purpose and have common principles applied. We can get greater buy-in along the supply chain if we approach it in this way. Will the Minister consider that it should be integrated? I acknowledge the full details have not been worked out. As the actions and the ambitions for various sectors emerge, they should be integrated into the climate approach.

The climate approach has the oversight of the Taoiseach's office and it has the cross-Government pressures that were not included in the Circular Economy and Miscellaneous Provisions Act but they are essential if we are to get momentum in the circular economy territory.