Results 40,501-40,520 of 40,897 for speaker:Simon Coveney

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: I was on a building site in Cobh recently where houses were being built with a material I had never seen before. It is providing extraordinary improvements in terms of heat and energy management once the homes have been built. I think this is happening now and our job is to accelerate it further and, basically, to make it the norm. If we need to look at new incentives and new grant aid...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: I am not sure I mentioned carbon abatement at all. Did I?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: What I mean by that is emissions reductions, basically. It is about moving away from industries, sectors and practices that produce carbon emissions. If we can replace them with alternative materials, fuels and approaches, that is effectively what I am talking about. It is carbon abatement.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: It is not just coal and oil. It is gas too. We are trying, with carbon abatement, to move away from carbon-based fuels and to reduce the emissions that come from the burning of them to generate energy. I am not quite sure what the Deputy is getting at.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: To be clear about that, as far as I am concerned, we should use as few carbon fuels as we can. I recognise that we will be using gas in particular for quite some time as a transition fuel until we can replace gas with biogas, until we can develop a hydrogen economy and until we can generate sufficient electricity from renewable sources, predominantly wind but also solar, and maybe other...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: I do not think I can give any certainty on that. All I can say is that, by 2050, we have a target of generating 37 GW of electricity offshore. At least 10 GW of electricity will be generated onshore by wind. There will probably be a considerable amount on top of that from solar too. Hopefully, at that point, we will have quite a large hydrogen economy and a large biofuel and biogas...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: Yes. It is necessary. We have said that Ireland wants to reach net zero by 2050 and maybe before that. My job is to take this in chunks. We have targets to get to by 2025, which is not that far away, and by 2030, which are very demanding. I think that is where the focus is now.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: It is, yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: I talked a lot about carbon capture and storage at the start. I do not know if the Deputy was here for that. The cement industry is difficult to reduce emissions from. We are effectively trying to do three things. One is to shift the industry towards a lower carbon form of cement and to try to incentivise that through public procurement, with State construction contracts and so on....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: The Deputy and I often disagree on various different policies but I think that is a fair concern, that this would be held up as a solution that can give a green card to the industry to keep doing what it is doing, because at some point we will just capture the emissions. That is why I think we need to make progress in understanding what is feasible and what is not, and on what can apply here...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: Knowing the Minister, Deputy Ryan's view on this issue, I think he will be impatient to get some recommendations about what is possible and what is not. That will determine how we will work with the cement industry in the future. This is a sector that has to find a credible route to reducing emissions, given how big a contributor it is. We want to do that in a way that does not wipe out an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: Some of it.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: I will try to get that information for the Deputy. I do not have it off the top of my head. My point is that some of the capital that is funding renewable projects today, helping to build an industry around renewables, is from companies looking to decarbonise their systems. That is why we saw the development of some wind projects directly linked to an individual company. When Apple wanted...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: It does.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: The point I am clearly not explaining well enough is that by building more wind farms, we also build capacity for others looking to build wind farms, connect them to the grid and sell into the system. A scale is necessary for a vibrant on and offshore wind industry. It is likewise for the solar industry. When Eli Lilly in Kinsale decided to build a solar farm next door to its manufacturing...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: Chemical fertilisers are also down 30% in two years.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: Sometimes at meetings like this, we focus on what is yet to be done rather than what has already been done. I will try not to be partisan but the term of this Government has been extraordinary in trying to reshape the policy approach towards green and climate issues. The role of the Green Party has been central to that. It has been mainstreamed and accepted by all parties as regards the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action: Review of the Climate Action Plan 2023: Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment (7 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: Maybe even a year ago. If one looks at even agricultural practices now in terms of how family farms are run, how grassland is managed and how slurry is injected into the soil, there is extraordinary change happening. I am only using agriculture as an example, but it is across lots of other sectors too. We should recognise that because some of this change is not easy. On the offshore...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Alcohol Labelling (6 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: As the Deputy may be aware, under the EU Treaties, Ireland is represented by the European Commission at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), including the recent Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee Meeting. In respect of the specific issue of Ireland’s law requiring health warnings on alcohol products Ireland’s national position is communicated to the EU Commission...

Written Answers — Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment: Departmental Policies (6 Dec 2023)

Simon Coveney: In 2023 my Department led on sustainable economic development through the creation and maintenance of high quality employment across all parts of our country: by championing enterprise; ensuring a competitive business base to incentivise work, sustainable enterprise, innovation and investment; strengthening global connections and trade; promoting fair and competitive markets, responsible...