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

It will be a short note with the same speaking points I would have read out.

With regard to ambition and the overall structure of where we are and where we are going, one of the key issues I alluded or referred to was that we had a real challenge with land use emissions, which are a significant part of our emissions. The challenge became apparent in the drafting of the Climate Action Plan 2023 because we were trying to assess what was possible, what the reductions were and so on. At the time, our net land use emissions, and members might correct me if I am wrong, were approximately 4.8 million tonnes of source emissions from land use in total. We then discovered the science had changed. It was almost even a month or two before we were drafting the final version. We were getting scientific advice from the EPA and other scientific bodies that, because of the nature of where our forestry had been planted, our land use emissions were likely to be at 11 million tonnes by 2030. That is from memory. I could be incorrect on those figures but the broad point is made. On the clear-felling of the forest that was due to take place, the fact the locations were on peaty soils meant our land use emissions were significantly different from what they were originally. We said we needed to hold on a second to get to the bottom of this. One year later, it is probably even more complicated because it is not just on forestry that the science is uncertain but also the science in terms of grassland management and wetland management.

Some of it is clear, and we will really scale up and ramp up certain things. I refer to things like the rehabilitation of bogs, which is of huge benefit and relatively low cost. We are delivering 30,000 ha already. Therefore, some of the science says to absolutely go ahead with that to the maximum. However, some of the other areas in terms of what exactly is happening with grassland management and peaty soils are very disputed or there is a variability with the baseline figures with which we are working.

There is a 30% variability in what the baseline is and will continue to be until some of these underlying scientific issues are assessed and measured. It has not been decided yet how we will manage that. It has to go to Government, and obviously the climate action plan will address some of it. We have to treat this in a different manner. For the likes of the electricity and heating sectors, the statistical basis on which we are working is solid. One of the first things we do is address that issue within the climate action plan. That has not been agreed by Government yet, so I will have to await that. It will be moving towards an activity based process, because then we are measuring the activity and the reductions rather than relying on a baseline which continues to move. That is the broad principle.