Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)
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123. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the corrective actions he will take to ensure that the transport sector meets its emissions reductions targets by 2030 and does not exceed the sectoral emissions ceilings; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18316/25]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal East, Fianna Fail)
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For the transport sector, we are required to pursue a decarbonisation pathway to achieve a 50% reduction in transport emissions by 2030 in a manner that is consistent with sectoral emission ceilings of 54MtCO2eq. and 37MtCO2eq. for carbon budget periods 1 and 2 respectively, which were agreed by Government in August 2022.

The development of the Climate Action Plan 2023 took note of the emissions ceiling for transport and developed policies intended to put the sector on a pathway to achieve emissions reduction of 50% by 2030, in a manner that is compliant with the sectoral emission ceilings. Climate Action Plan 2024 represented a refinement and revision of the policies and pathways set out in CAP23, while also taking into account the recommendations of the CCAC’s Annual Review 2023. The annex of actions in the annual Climate Action Plans set out a suite of actions aimed at achieving longer term targets to reduce emissions, and ultimately to reach net zero by 2050.

Transport remains a very challenging sector to decarbonise, and it is widely acknowledged that the achievement of the carbon budget 1 target of 54 MtCO2eq will be extremely challenging as the transformational changes required including modal switch from private car to public transport and active travel take time and investment. With that in mind, my Department is working closely with the National Transport Authority (NTA) to deliver the CAP26 corrective action modelling project, which is intended to:

1. Correct the trajectory of carbon emissions from the transport sector out to 2030.

2. Identify whether any additional measures, above and beyond those required to keep the transport sector within its sectoral emissions ceilings, could be proposed to deliver currently unallocated savings for carbon budget period 2.

3. Identify decarbonisation interventions and policy pathways that will continue to deliver sustained and accelerated emissions abatement beyond 2030 into Carbon Budget 3, in line with national and European targets.

The detailed scope of this project has now been agreed between my Department and the NTA, and work is underway to complete this work in time for a re-assessed and strengthened policy pathway to be set out in CAP26.