Ms Marie Donnelly:

I could start on this one but Ms Gallagher and Mr. Hussey are considerably more expert in this space than I. I will explain it at my level of understanding. As we went into the whole process of developing the recommendations for carbon budgets 3 and 4, CB3 and CB4, we looked at the distinctive greenhouse gas emission profile of Ireland. As members will be aware, Ireland has a much higher level of agricultural emissions than would be the case almost anywhere else in the world. I believe that New Zealand is the only other country that would have the numbers we do. Upwards of 30% to 40% of our emissions are coming from agriculture, be it from animals or the land. If we look at the European Union, the closest member state to us in this regard would be the Netherlands at 14%. We have a very distinct profile of emissions. We wanted to be sure that we were using the right models in order to allow us to take that into account. I will use some technical words here and ask Mr Hussey and Ms Gallagher to explain them. On this occasion, we have used what are called reduced-complexity climate models. These models, which are now being used also by the IPCC, allow us to assess the dynamic changes coming from emissions of different greenhouse gases. They also allow us to put our emissions into the context of global emissions. By doing that and using the fair climate model, it allows us to look at emission scenarios that achieve the Paris temperature goal. Is is not that we abandoned Paris per se. In fact, we are very insistent on the Paris objective of temperature neutrality, but we have access to newer models now that can reflect the actual situation in Ireland better. This is why we use those.

I will ask Mr. Hussey or Ms Gallagher to explain the models a little bit because, as was rightly pointed out, they are quite complicated.