Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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505. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the contingency plans and budget he has put in place to address the possibility that Ireland may not meet its legally binding annual greenhouse gas emissions targets under the EU effort sharing decision; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43070/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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Pursuant to the EU Effort-Sharing Decision of 2009 ( Decision No. 406/2009/EC), Ireland has ambitious, legally binding greenhouse gas emission reduction targets for each year between 2013 and 2020 inclusive. Under the Decision, emissions in the year 2013 should be no more than the average of those same emissions in the years 2008 to 2010.  In the year 2020, the target is that emissions should be 20 per cent below their value in 2005. The target for each of the years 2014 through 2019 is on a straight-line trajectory between the targets for 2013 and 2020. Over-achievement in any one year can be used in any other year where there is under-achievement. Furthermore, there are various other flexible mechanisms available to Member States to reach their targets such as Certified Emissions Reductions, that is, the unit of the Clean Development Mechanism as defined under the Kyoto Protocol, along with the inter-Member State trading of units.

The EPA has recently projected that Ireland's cumulative distance to target for the period 2013-2020 will range between 1 and 17 Mt CO2e for the period as a whole. In the event that the units currently held in the national portfolio are not sufficient to meet any deficit, it is possible that Ireland may acquire additional compliance units from other Member States or through the carbon markets. Analysis by my Department suggests that this eventuality, should it arise, will not arise until 2020 or thereafter.

The extent of the challenge posed by these emission reduction targets is well understood by the Government, as reflected in the National Policy Position on Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development and the General Scheme of the Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development Bill, both of which were published in April this year. The National Policy Position provides a high-level policy direction for the adoption and implementation by the Government of plans to enable the State to move to a low-carbon economy. Proposed statutory authority for the plans is set out in the General Scheme of the Climate Action and Low-Carbon Development Bill.

In anticipation of the planned legislation, work is already underway on developing a low-carbon plan - the National Low-Carbon Roadmap to 2050 - the primary objective of which will be to track implementation of measures and identify additional measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and progress the overall national low-carbon transition agenda. As I am satisfied that Ireland is on course to comply with the annual mitigation targets in the first half of the 2013 to 2020 compliance period, the immediate focus of the national low-carbon road - mapping process will be the compliance challenge in the years 2017 to 2020.