Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank members for the invitation to discuss our sectoral emissions ceilings in transport. I appreciate the opportunity to outline how my Department is proposing to comply with these carbon budgets in accordance with the decarbonisation pathway we set out in the Climate Action Plan 2023. I am joined by my officials, Ms Andrea Lennon from the climate adaptation, research and energy division, Ms Patricia Waller from zero emission vehicles Ireland, Mr. John Martin from the climate engagement and governance division, Mr. Naoise Grisewood from the climate engagement and governance division and Mr. William Priestley from the maritime transport division, which leads across the climate mitigation and adaptation efforts in the Department of Transport.

The engagement is timely. We are now approaching both the midway point of our first carbon budget to 2025, the first full year under the sectoral emissions ceilings agreed by the Government last July and the first year of implementation under our national sustainable mobility policy, which was published last April. Under this sectoral emissions ceiling and carbon budget programme, the transport sector must achieve emissions abatement of 50% relative to 2018 baseline levels of 12.2 megatonnes of CO2 equivalent by 2030. This abatement must also be achieved in a manner that is consistent with the total carbon budget of 54 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent over the first carbon budget period 2021 to 2025 and of 37 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent over the second carbon budget period from 2026 to 2030.

I am pleased to report that I believe the transport sector currently remains on profile for compliance with our first carbon budget of 54 megatonnes for the five-year period from 2021 to 2025. Early estimates of final 2022 emissions, as reported by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, SEAI, in its recent interim energy balance suggests that, in total, 40.1% of the first five-year carbon budget for transport has been expended over the first two years, 2021 and 2022. However, our compliance with our sectoral emissions ceiling is finally balanced and I cannot overstate the level and scale of the challenge we face in transport to ensure we stay in compliance with our carbon budget over future years. Colleagues will be aware that a significant share of the emissions abatement achieved in the transport sector over these two years resulted from a reduced level of transport activity experienced as the country was still emerging from Covid-19 and the relaxation of public health restrictions in 2021.

We believe such levels of activity have returned back to pre-Covid levels and are reflected in the growth and fuel usage reported by SEAI, which saw diesel use increase by 5% and petrol use by 13.6% in 2022. Although this trend is concerning, these increases have been mitigated to a degree by the buoyant uptake of electric vehicles, EVs, with some 88,000 EVs now on our roads, and the strong recovery of public transport patronage and the roll-out of additional public transport services over the past year. We are now seeing total weekly Luas and bus journeys exceed pre-pandemic levels, with total weekly bus journeys outside of Dublin 28% to 30% higher compared with the numbers of the journeys in the same week in 2019. Nevertheless, there remains an urgent imperative to halt further unsustainable growth in our fossil fuel usage and decouple our transport systems from reliance on fossil fuels in order that we can accelerate the pace and scale of climate action in this decade.

The climate action plan is the first instance that these carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings have been incorporated in our annual climate action plan, and the new transport chapter reflects both the level of challenge and the system change required to deliver 50% emission abatement in transport, alongside a vision for the wider wellbeing co-benefits we are trying to achieve through such transformation of our transport systems. The proposed decarbonisation pathway and work programmes set out therein have been informed by both the joint OECD and Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, Redesigning Ireland's Transport for Net Zero detailed report published last October, which found our existing transport system fosters growing car use and emissions by design, and transport modelling undertaken by the National Transport Authority, NTA, to identify the level of change required to achieve 50% emission abatement by 2030 and to inform further policy design.

Our consultative process included extensive engagements and workshops with agencies, academia and wider transport stakeholders, and I am happy that the Common Agricultural Policy, CAP, 2023 transport chapter represents a refocused policy approach to that of CAP 2021, which takes account of that input as we pivot towards an avoid-shift-improve framework for greater transport sustainability. In total, we have identified 15 key high-impact work programmes we have grouped under this framework, alongside some cost-cutting, horizontal and adaptation-focused work programmes. These programmes build on and incorporate key actions and interventions identified under our national sustainable mobility policy, our road haulage strategy, our national EV charging infrastructure strategy and the zero emission vehicles Ireland, ZEVI, work programme, and our renewable transport fuels policy, all of which have been developed and published over the past year or so. Our approach has ensured a far greater integration of climate action across all transport modes and ensured these links are more closely integrated with our spatial and land use planning systems.

Members will be aware I am on record as stating that I believe achieving our target of 50% emissions abatement in transport by 2030 will be the most difficult of all sectors and, in this way, the key performance indicators, KPIs, and headline 2030 targets in the chapter, which have been informed by our transport modelling, make it abundantly clear just how transformative the required level and scale of change to meet a 50% reduction will be. In effect, we will need to reduce total vehicle kilometres travelled by some 20%, achieve a 50% reduction in fossil fuel usage in transport, and accelerate vehicle fleet transition in order that approximately one in three private cars is a battery electric vehicle by 2030. We have to ensure walking, cycling and public transport account for 50% of daily journeys, which will require a 50% increase in daily active travel journeys, a 130% increase in daily public transport journeys and a 25% reduction in daily car journeys.

I will be happy to speak further to these work programmes and targets in our discussion, but I must stress that to increase both the pace of emissions reduction in transport and improve public wellbeing will require a wider systemic response. We must improve how our planning and transport systems work together to accelerate the pace of infrastructure delivery and ensure all our agencies and delivery bodies have the capacity and skills required to support the roll-out of necessary infrastructure, minimising undue delays that may emerge at the required consultation and review stages. These steps are essential to enable individuals to make sustainable transport choices in their own lives as we seek to scale those policies that have real transformative potential and capacity to shift our transport systems away from car dependency through road space reallocation, the mainstreaming of on-demand shared services, communication efforts to address car-centric mindsets, and by supplying the necessary charging infrastructure and enhanced public transport services to provide our public with viable, sustainable alternatives.

While fleet electrification and the continued use of biofuels will continue to provide the greatest share of emissions abatement in the medium term, a key recognition of CAP 2023 is that the required level of transport emissions abatement cannot be achieved through reliance on technological improvements alone. Approximately 2 million tonnes of emissions abatement will have to be achieved through a basis of avoid-and-shift measures that address the basic demand for transport and support behavioural change and modal shift from private car usage at an individual level. Considerable activity is under way and I look forward to the committee's support and contribution as we seek to accelerate and progress the implementation of such measures.