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

It is a corrective process. We have not yet gone to the Government and we are going to have to do so, which will happen before we break for Christmas. It will have to contain a variety of additional measures. It will not be significantly different from the 2023 plan, which was a significant step up, and in a number of sectors it is a matter of delivering what is committed to and promised. One of the key issues we need to focus on is how we can scale up existing measures rather than continuously look for new or other technological solutions. It will require us to meet our targets and to fulfil the legislative requirements. We know we have to address the issue of land use emissions and that is one element the plan will have to address. Last year, in the design of the climate action plan and the sectoral emission allocations, we recognised there was significant uncertainty as to what even the base-line emission levels were in land use and that is something on which we have done a lot of work in the past year, which we will present as part of the climate action plan.

Similarly, we know we will have to allocate some 5.5 million tonnes in the black box of unallocated emissions across sectors. Again, the mechanism for doing that will be a key component of Climate Action Plan 2024. Another new and different aspect of this climate action plan in comparison with previous ones is that there will be a requirement for a strategic environmental assessment. I expect, subject to it being approved by the Government, we will publish and then go into a public consultation process ,which is required in the strategic and environmental assessment. That is likely to start in the new year. I do not think there is any point going to public consultation in Christmas week, but we will prepare it for public consultation early in the new year, as is required under the environmental regulations under which we operate. The exact mechanisms, as I said, are not concluded. We will look at additional measures particularly with regard to the further allocation of the €5.5 million tonnes. There is a variety of more specific technological areas where we will look for further emissions reductions. None of those are easy and some are testing the edge of what we can do in the time lines required but we do have a series of technological sectors where we see further emissions reduction potential. It will be focusing on a relatively small number of those as well as delivering on the existing measures that we need to deliver on.

At the same time, we are also involved in a European Union process. In the next week or two, we have to deliver our national energy and climate action plan to the European Union. We have this complicated system where we have our own national law and governance structure and that has a lot of similarities with what we need to do in the European governance framework. There is a significant difference between what we have as existing measures and then additional measures. Some of the additional measures would be similar to what we need to do to get our own climate emissions reductions back on track.

I am sorry for the long response. I put those figures in, which are the latest information, because sometimes people can get a sense of hopelessness to the effect that it is not possible, that we cannot do this, etc. However, there is significant change, even in recent months. The emissions trajectory in a couple of sectors are starting to show significant change. In electricity, I understand the first half of the year has seen a 15% reduction. That is due to a variety of different factors including warm weather, renewables storage - I was told yesterday we were able to call on about 125 MW of two-hour battery storage that avoid having to turn on a dirty high-emission plant - and there is also the use of the interconnectors. Sometimes it can be technical issues. The differential between the UK carbon price and our ETS price. Seeing a significant change in the way the interconnectors are working which has helped us not having to turn on Moneypoint as a back-up power supply. People think it is not possible but that just shows to me it is. That is not to say we are out the gap or anything like it at all; we have a huge challenge. Let us take the example of agriculture. There is a lot of commentary to the effect that this will be bad for agriculture and so on. The 25% to 30% reduction in nitrogen fertiliser use in the past two years is significant. Had we said four or five years ago that you would cut nitrogen fertiliser use by 30%, no one would have thought it possible. The greatest benefit of that is a saving of 30% of the cost for Irish farmers.

I just mention those two matters. The areas where we probably have the biggest difficulty are in transport and the built environment. We have always had difficulty there. There will be a number of additional measures in things like transport. I was speaking in the Dáil earlier - Deputy Bruton was there - on the potential for rail freight as an example of the sort of additional measures we may look to advance to close the gap.