Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 17 September 2025

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate, Environment and Energy

Carbon Budget: Discussion (Resumed)

2:00 am

Photo of Alice-Mary HigginsAlice-Mary Higgins (Independent)
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I want to check that I have the right picture of how matters stand in the context of the temperature neutrality piece.

Of course, the ultimate objective was to stay below a 1.5°C increase. We must stay below a 2°C increase. We are already, as we know, almost at the point of a 1.5°C increase. Some 0.5°C of that increase is the result of methane, which is shorter lived. If we were to pull back on methane, we could increase the space available and create a higher likelihood for the general collective increase to remain stable at a level of 1.5°C. There is a danger in temperature neutrality in terms of methane. We are effectively saying that we will use up that 0.5°C space again and again, with more and more short-term methane emissions, and hold to that increase of 1.5°C, which is, of course, a bad thing. We thereby take from the possibility of space opening up if we were to reduce methane emissions. That is something we can do and have the tools to do. We reduce the space for carbon emission reduction and make it much more difficult for every other industry and for every other measure we are taking to reduce carbon emissions to keep the increase below 1.5°C. So much of the space is being used up again and again by short-term repeated methane emissions. Is that the position?