Catherine Martin (Dublin Rathdown, Green Party)
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1036. To ask the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources if he will provide the detail of the submission made by his Department to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform regarding the mid-term capital review to ensure that the review results in a capital investment programme consistent with Ireland's EU level targets for 2020, proposed targets for 2030, the obligations of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 201,5 including the national transition objective and the Paris Agreement. [34828/17]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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Ireland has an emissions reduction target for each year between 2013 and 2020 under the 2009 EU Effort Sharing Decision. For the year 2020 itself, the target set for Ireland is that emissions should be 20% below their level in 2005. This will be Ireland’s contribution to the overall EU objective to reduce its emissions by the order of 20% by 2020 compared to 1990 levels. Ireland’s target is jointly the most demanding 2020 reduction target allocated to EU Member States under this 2009 Decision, which is shared only with Denmark and Luxembourg.

The latest projections of greenhouse gas emissions by the Environmental Protection Agency indicate that emissions from those sectors of the economy covered by Ireland's 2020 targets could be between 4% and 6% below 2005 levels by 2020. The projected shortfall to our targets in 2020 reflects both the constrained investment capacity over the past decade due to the economic crisis, and the extremely challenging nature of the target itself. In fact, it is now accepted that Ireland’s 2020 target was not consistent with what would be achievable on an EU wide cost-effective basis.

Ireland’s first statutory National Mitigation Plan, which I expect to publish shortly, will set out what Ireland is doing, and is planning to do, to further the national transition objective as set out in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act, 2015. This first Plan will not provide a complete roadmap to achieve the national transition objective to 2050, but it will begin the process of development of medium- to long-term options to ensure that we are well positioned to take the necessary actions in the next and future decades.

The National Mitigation Plan has been prepared, having regard to the provisions set out in the 2015 Act, in close collaboration with all relevant Government Departments and, in particular, with the Departments of Transport, Tourism and Sport; Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government; and Agriculture, Food and the Marine. As well as being supported by a range of technical, economic and environmental inputs, the National Mitigation Plan has also been informed by the submissions received during a public consultation in March and April 2017.  The Plan will become a living document accessible on my Department's website, and will be updated on an on-going basis as analysis, dialogue and technological innovation generate further cost-effective sectoral mitigation options. 

The National Mitigation Plan presents detailed information on the costs and emissions reduction potential for measures already in place, and measures under consideration, within the responsibility of my own Department as well as those within the remit of the relevant sectoral Departments.

While responsibility for the mid-term capital review is a matter for the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, and this review is ongoing, I have advised the Government, arising from the analysis presented in the National Mitigation Plan, of the scale of the required investments in the years ahead in order to reduce Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions. I and other Ministers will continue to engage with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform in the context of the mid-term capital review with a view to ensuring that the investment requirements arising from Ireland’s climate action policy objectives are appropriately reflected in the outcome of the review.