Mr. Bill Callanan:

I am a civil servant and have huge regard for the democratic process. We do not lobby. I certainly have not lobbied the Climate Change Advisory Council. We are informed by the council as to how Government policy is developed. That order is important to restate. I spoke at a climate conference the Department held quite recently and articulated that it is clear that methane is different from carbon dioxide. It is a trajectory that has to halve rather than zero emissions in terms of 2050 targets. I think that is scientifically accepted. My personal view, rather than the Department's, is that in many ways this comes down to a communications challenge that I think will be there going forward. Achieving climate targets across all sectors, including reductions in methane, will be incredibly challenging. We have to be conscious of how to convey that to the public in terms of the realities of each sector having to do what it can and should do. In that context, there is the old philosophy that if you are explaining you are losing. That is what it comes down to in relation to how methane is dealt with into the future. In my view, separate accounting in terms of methane would bring clarity and would avoid a situation where every sector is pitted against one another in terms of saying they do not have the same targets or otherwise compared to other sectors of society. That clarity, I think, over the longer term, would bring an easier debate in terms of the requirements of every sector in terms of contribution. Let us be clear, though: any approach to how methane is calculated from here to 2030 is set out in how the inventories are computed by the EPA. That is not going to change any time soon, I think, in reality, but it can influence Government policy as to what an appropriate target is in terms of methane going forward.