William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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217. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the way in which his Department is progressing toward the transport sector's emissions reduction targets under the Climate Action Plan; the additional measures being considered to meet 2030 goals; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62630/25]

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 that were agreed by Government in August 2022. Despite continued economic and population growth, transport emissions have started to decline year-on-year.

The transport chapter of the annually updated national Climate Action Plan (CAP) sets out the policy pathway to achieve these emission reductions and uses an Avoid-Shift-Improve framework where the aim is to:

• Avoid generating unsustainable additional transport demand through, for example, better spatial, urban, and land-use planning.

• Shift to more sustainable modes of transport, such as active travel and public transport.

• Improve the efficiency of residual vehicle journeys through widespread electrification and the use of renewable alternative fuels.

The Climate Action Plans, which are updated nationally, are underpinned by a detailed Annex of Actions, and reported upon quarterly by the Department of An Taoiseach. We have already seen positive progress in all aspects of the Avoid-Shift-Improve framework:

Avoid – My Department has developed a new national strategy, Moving Together: A Collaborative Approach to Systems Change in Transport. This strategy seeks to encourage a collective and collaborative approach to behavioural change, in an effort to reduce or avoid the need for unsustainable travel - insofar as possible - across all areas of the economy and society. It is also expected to have a key role in reducing congestion and air pollution, and in meeting the CAP23 commitment of reducing total vehicle kilometres travelled, both private and commercial, by 20%. I look forward to progressing work on the recommendations within the strategy, following approval by Government which will complement and mutually reinforce the significant investment that is being made in public transport services and active travel infrastructure to help ‘Shift’ people to more sustainable modes like walking, cycling, public and shared transport.

Shift – Shared mobility holds enormous potential for a genuinely new approach to transport – a people-centred approach that offers many different options for a range of everyday journeys. In terms of active travel, earlier this year, a TFI e-bike trial scheme commenced with the introduction of 100 e-bikes in Cork. Following the success of the initial rollout of the e-bikes in Cork, a further 400 are due to be put into operation across Cork, Limerick, Galway, and Waterford later this year.

Since the publication of the Climate Action Plan 2021, my Department has invested over €1 billion in active travel projects through the National Transport Authority’s (NTA’s) Active and Sustainable Transport Investment Programme, delivering over 1,000 km of walking and cycling projects around the country. In 2025 approximately €293 million has been allocated to this Programme, in addition to a commitment by my Department and TII to spending €67 million on Greenways and National Roads Active Travel infrastructure. It is expected that approximately 200km of walking and cycling infrastructure will be delivered in 2025.

In respect of Public Transport, in October, the NTA launched the most extensive phase of BusConnects yet, connecting more Dublin communities - and the construction of the Liffey Valley Corridor is set to being in December 2025. I also recently secured Government Approval for BusConnects Cork, which will bring enhanced bus and cycle infrastructure to the city offering an improved network that will have over 50% more bus services in place, with two routes operating 24-hours.

Improve - We are still seeing steady growth in the number of EV registrations, and I announced in October that Ireland has already met its Climate Action Plan target of 195,000 electric vehicles on the road by the end of 2025, a key milestone in the nation's transition to cleaner transport. Additionally, the Renewable Transport Fuel Obligation (RTFO) continues to see increases in our biofuel blend rates and increased the volume of biofuel supply by 60% between 2021 and 2023, representing displacement of two hundred thousand tonnes of CO2 each year.

Transport is a very difficult sector to decarbonise, and Climate Action Plans 2023-2025 set out policies intended to put the sector on a pathway to achieve an emissions reduction of 50% by 2030. However, achieving the carbon budget 1 target of 54 Mt CO2eq will be extremely challenging and with that in mind, my Department is working closely with the National Transport Authority (NTA) to deliver the CAP corrective action modelling project, which is progressing well and will inform future iterations of the Climate Action Plan and wider policy initiatives within the transport decarbonisation domain.