Professor Brian Ó Gallachóir:

The short answer is "Yes", there are additional things that could be added. We were very conscious in this report not to be policy-prescriptive in the sense of laying out the science on climate change, the science on climate change mitigation and science on climate change adaptation. This additional piece went beyond what the IPCC community does in that it would normally have a focus on those three alone but we had this additional volume and additional team working on the opportunities associated with transformation. We were not policy-prescriptive but we did try to make the synthesis report in particular policy-relevant. That is the first point. The second is that one of the positive things in the Act was to make the climate action plan an iterative annual living document exactly for the purposes the Deputy pointed out. Essentially, if we are not on track we need to make changes.

It was clear from the EPA emission projections that the previous climate action plan was not leading us on track to a 51% reduction, it was closer to half of that. That gives impetus for the next iteration of the climate action plan to look at what else is required. Certainly in respect of the climate action plan, there are new policies and measures introduced in the one that was published before Christmas, relative to before. The EPA is doing a new set of climate projections that will give an indication as to how far or how off-track it is relative to our carbon budgets and indeed our sectorial emission ceilings. In many sectors, we know what we have to do. We know what emission reductions we have to achieve. Some of the pathways have more options. In some areas, there are difficult choices to be made around the speed at which some of the technical solutions are available. Take methane, for example. There are changes in cattle breeding, etc. that will take time to transfer into farming practice versus the need for strong emissions reductions. We see that in a similar way in transport with cars, for example, the electric vehicle penetration of the fleet versus active travel versus public transport. There is a lot of focus on those elements but we are seeing fossil fuel cars growing. There are significant challenges in terms of trying to respond on an iterative basis to the emissions as they are happening and as new information and new drivers are coming in, like economic growth, which in some respects is driving data centres for example. That is a particular one in the area of the growth equation.

The iterative nature of the climate action plan, as in the annual task of reviewing, reflecting and reintroducing new policies, is a very useful political mechanism to actually do that, but it is very challenging. This goes back to the earlier question about the challenge of actually ensuring the implementation of policies achieves the goals it is setting out to achieve. We made the point in volume 2 very clearly that we are undergoing the energy transition and the transition across society, but it is not happening at the correct pace. This is a challenge not just facing Ireland, but many countries internationally. The challenge that Deputy Whitmore raises is the key one and a collective effort is required to actually answer that challenge.

In the context of this report, we had a focus on presenting the science and the knowledge that is available. We avoided, deliberately, being policy prescriptive. I hope that answers, at least in part, the Deputy's question.