Dr. Frank McGovern:

I would like to make a few points. There was a lot packed into the Senator's questions, but I do not think we have time to go into all of the detail. Internationally, the Paris Agreement has set the framework by which we are going to achieve the required ambition to protect our climate. That is articulated as a temperature goal in the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2oC and to make efforts to limit warming to 1.5oC. As part of that process, we are to balance greenhouse gas emissions and removals during the second half of this century. That ambition will be expressed through the global stock take process. As committee members will probably know, the first stock take under the Paris Agreement will take place in 2023. It will look at the new science from the IPCC as well as the various contributions made by parties under their nationally determined contributions, NDCs. Ireland's NDC is under the EU, and so we are part of that overall ambition in the EU package. We also have the long-term strategies, which are really important in achieving the climate stabilisation that is necessary in order to avoid the large-scale impacts.

The various gasses and the pathways to 2030 are important. The Senator is correct in that action in respect of 2030 is essential to ensure that we are on the right pathway to stay below those targets. The IPCC was tasked with looking specifically at the pathways for achievement of the 1.5°C warming and that special report was published in 2019. I will try to scan the document to confirm the figures that were mentioned. The key message that the IPCC has been giving for some time is that we need to get to net zero CO2 as soon as possible. Emissions of CO2 that accumulate in the atmosphere will largely determine long-term global warming. They commit us to warming for centuries and millennia, and that is a message that was clear from this assessment report. It is also clear from the 1.5°C report and the UN report provided in advance of the Paris Agreement in terms of the long-term global goal. The IPCC will update those analyses in the sixth assessment report. We hope that the first volume of that will be published in the first week in August this year. Due to Covid, it has been delayed. The subsequent volumes on impacts, adaptation and mitigation will be published in early 2022.

In terms of some specific numbers for various gases, as I said the IPCC report made it clear that getting to net zero CO2 by 2050 would be really important and we then need to have negative emissions to offset emissions of gases that we cannot bring to zero. In terms of the other gases, methane reductions of well above 50% at a global level are required. Nitrous oxide is slightly more complicated because some models use more fertiliser for growing bioenergy crops. There is a lot of uncertainty around nitrous oxide levels.

In terms of methane emissions globally, approximately 50% are from fossil fuel industry releases, fracking, pipelines, etc. Standard production also causes leaks. They are considered the low-hanging fruit, so to speak. Immediate action to reduce those emissions would be very significant in terms of the global picture. For Ireland our main focus has been on methane from food production. In terms of the figures for a reduction in methane at a global level from agriculture for 2030, they ranged from -11% to -30% relative to emissions in 2010. For CO2, the figure is -58% 2-40% relative to the 2010 figure for 2030. If I have missed something, I ask the Senator to remind me. Those are the figures we are working with at a global level.

It is important that we do not suddenly say that the global figures immediately map onto every individual country. Every individual country, under the Paris Agreement, needs to find its own pathway to climate neutrality. I will stop there.