Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action debate -
Thursday, 19 Sep 2024

Review of the Climate Action Plan: Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications

An Cathaoirleach

I have received apologies from Deputies Alan Farrell and Whitmore. The purpose of today's meeting is to have a discussion in advance of the next iteration of the climate action plan, subsequent to the Climate Change Advisory Council, CCAC, and EPA reports from earlier in the summer. On behalf of the committee, I am very happy to welcome the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and his officials to the meeting.

Before we begin, I will read the note on privilege. I remind the witnesses of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. If witnesses' statements are potentially defamatory in respect of an identifiable person or entity, I will direct them to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members of the committee are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable. I remind members that they are only allowed to participate in the meeting if they are physically located in the Leinster House complex. I ask those members who are joining us via Microsoft Teams to confirm that they are indeed on the grounds of Leinster House prior to making their contributions to the meeting.

We will go to the Minister for his opening statement.

Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications (Deputy Eamon Ryan)

I thank the Chair and the committee members for having me here today as part of the enhanced climate governance and reporting procedures implemented by the 2021 climate Act. This provision in the Act supports greater transparency and accountability in how we plan and deliver our climate action. This committee has an important role in this process, that is, reviewing the climate action plan to support the delivery of our climate targets and meeting our sectoral emissions ceiling and carbon budgets.

As the committee will know, 2023 was the warmest year on record globally and record-breaking warming has continued so far in 2024. Since the 1980s, Europe has been warming twice as fast as the global average and is now the fastest-warming continent on Earth. We face increasing risks of reaching irreversible climate tipping points. The EPA's climate change assessment in January 2024 indicates that climate tipping points in the north Atlantic and north-western Europe could impact Ireland. Storm surges and rising sea levels pose a threat to coastal cities like Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Limerick as well as to critical infrastructure.

In response to these challenges, we passed the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act in 2021 and have published iterative climate action plans annually. Climate Action Plan 2024 sets out the roadmap to deliver on Ireland’s climate ambition. It aligns with the legally binding economy-wide carbon budgets and sectoral ceilings that were agreed by the Government in July 2022.

There are encouraging signs that our approach is starting to work as the EPA’s most recent inventory report showed that overall emissions in Ireland fell by 6.8% last year compared with 2022. The report showed a decrease in emissions across a number of sectors, with overall emissions falling below the 1990 baseline for the first time in three decades. We have seen decreases in emissions in energy industries of 21.6%, in agriculture of 4.6%, in residential of 7% and in industry of 5.8%. While transport emissions increased marginally by 0.3%, emissions are now 4.3% below 2019 pre-Covid levels. In contrast, our economy grew by 5% last year under the GNI* indicator, pointing to a decoupling of economic growth and emissions. Despite these decreases, it is important to note that the EPA’s projections report also stated that, at the current rate of emissions reduction, Ireland will not stay within the limits of the first two carbon budgets.

Meeting this challenge will require both systemic policy change and behavioural change at all levels and will also rely on technological advances over the coming years. We are continuing our efforts through our work in the land use, land-use change and forestry, LULUCF, sector. Phase 2 of the land use review is under way and three new working groups have been established to progress this work, namely a high-level oversight group, a technical working group and a citizen engagement working group. For unallocated savings, working groups have been established to set out an approach to consider proposals and make recommendations. These proposals are expected by the first quarter of next year.

It is widely acknowledged that the transport sector is challenging to decarbonise. This challenge is not unique to Ireland. In our previous climate action plans we have set out the "avoid, shift, improve" framework. This seeks to address travel demand, encourage modal shift and harness technology to improve the efficiency of our vehicle fleet. The year 2023 was the first ever in which passenger numbers on PSO public transport services exceeded 300 million. There was a 24% increase in passenger numbers during last year. There are now over 135,000 electric vehicles on Irish roads. The year 2023 saw the introduction of a standard E10 in petrol and increases in the renewable transport fuels obligation rate are continuing this trend of increases in renewable fuel blending. I believe we are now at the peak of transport emissions in Ireland. With the retirement of older vehicles, improved spatial and land-use planning, public transport delivery, safer cities and transition to electrification and alternative fuels, emissions are expected to decrease.

As we approach the end of 2024, I believe the progress we have made this year in our efforts to deliver on ambitious climate targets is bearing fruit. It is evident that more work is required. We will continue to develop and refine our approach to achieving the 51% emissions reduction by 2030 and will go net zero by 2050. I thank the committee members, who play a crucial role in reviewing and contributing to the Government's progress towards achieving our climate ambitions through providing oversight that enhances climate governance and accountability structures.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister for his opening statement. I invite members to indicate if they would like to ask the Minister questions. I might go first. I will pick up on two remarks from his statement. The first is that we have managed to decouple economic growth from emissions, which is very welcome. The other is that the Minister believes transport emissions have peaked and that they will decline from here on in. It is one thing to decouple emissions from economic growth but we are seeing a surge in population growth at the moment. We expect to see that right through to 2040 and beyond. Decoupling emissions from population growth is going to be a very great challenge, particularly in the transport sector. It is very much in line with the "avoid, shift, improve" philosophy in reducing emissions in transport that we avoid new emissions in the transport sector. We therefore need to think about where the new people who are going to live in this country are going to live.

It makes far more sense to me that we plan for them to live in such a way that they do not create a greater burden on transport emissions. There is a real opportunity - and we have spoken about this in the past - to develop our regional cities quickly, in particular through using rail if we build high-quality and high-density housing near new train stations. In places such as my own city of Limerick, there would be an opportunity to link Limerick and Shannon with high-frequency rail and to build stations along that railway together with housing, commercial and industrial development. That national strategic planning piece will be hugely important in ensuring we do not see an increase in transport emissions. Therefore, if we do have an extra 1 million people in the country by 2040, they should not be car dependent. They should be able to get to and from school, work and everywhere else they need to be primarily by metropolitan rail systems. I mentioned Limerick and the mid-west, but good work is being done in Cork already. There is an opportunity for Galway, and perhaps less so for Waterford. I would like to hear the Minister’s views on the potential for fast growth of the regional cities with metropolitan rail underpinning that growth in order to prevent increased emissions in transport in the years ahead.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I thank the Chair. We are going to have to throw everything at transport, which is the hardest to change. This is because we have embedded a car-dependent system. I am not blaming anyone or any individual who is driving, because they often have to do so to carry out everyday functions. It is difficult. We are going against a system that for many decades designed our systems and towns on the basis that the expansion of car use would be the norm. The average commuting distances lengthened, and space and resources were taken up to deliver that system. In the end, that system will never work because it is ultimately not good in engineering terms and will inevitably lead to gridlock. Trying to solve that by providing further road capacity would not only induce further traffic, it would lead to further gridlock. We therefore have to shift. This requires so many different aspects, such as demand management, real promotion of active travel so that it is safer to walk and cycle and bus networks everywhere. That is happening and it is working.

The statistics for public transport increases are spectacular. In the lifetime of this Government, public transport and rural Local Link services have increased by 1,000%. Irish Rail weekend traffic in the same period has increased by more than 200%. The same is the case across Bus Éireann; weekends have increased by 163% and weekdays have increased by 128%. There is slightly less there because there has been a change in weekday patterns because people are working from home. The same is the case for Dublin Bus. There are spectacular increases across Irish Rail.

One of the most important elements of this in the revision of the national planning framework, which will happen this autumn. As the Cathaoirleach has said, it will bring housing and transport together as key challenges that must be tackled in unison. This is to deliver a better outcome in housing, everyday economic efficiency and time saved. We do not just have to measure our progress in the areas of climate and emissions.

I had a meeting with some of our own transport officials during the week. We realised that if you take a very narrow prism and look at the annual updates that were done by the Land Development Agency, LDA, as well as at how many houses might be built from sites it is looking at, the number was relatively small. I think it was 11,000 or whatever number of houses. We were doing our wider assessment, and it is a multiple of many times that figure. We think it is possible to deliver by building housing close to railway stations and within an easy, ten-minute access to a railway station. That will have to happen in the east, and I think it will. The metro is about to come out of planning. We will proceed this autumn with the planning for the Finglas Luas, which is an example. DART+ West is out of planning, although it has not been judicial reviewed. Subject to it getting over that hurdle, we will see a massive example in the DART service in Dublin, as well as the introduction of the metro and the building Luas lines to the likes of Finglas.

The focus of all political parties, particularly as we start drafting manifestos, needs to be on the really honest question, namely, what we are going to fund in the regional cities, which will counterbalance Dublin. Those Dublin investments are coming and have been worked on for 20 years. They are either in planning or are out of planning and they will be built. However, if were just to build in Dublin, the country would tip over into the east coast. I apologise to the Cathaoirleach for speaking at length about this, but it is important. It is those investments that will require political support for the likes of metropolitan rail in Cork, Limerick, Waterford or Galway, which are probably the most key strategic investments. These are happening and are working. If anyone goes down to Waterford, they can see what is happening there with the moving of the railway station, Plunkett Station, to the new site on the quays. There is also the new sustainability bridge across the Suir and the housing that will be built right beside it. It is a model example of transport-led development.

We could go further. There are the new battery-electric trains we have ordered. I see no reason why we should not have a metropolitan service for the south east. If we re-open the Rosslare line, there could be a service from Wexford to Waterford, a service from Kilkenny to Waterford, and a service from Carrick-on-Suir to Clonmel to Waterford. That would not incur a significant investment because we would be running on existing, under-utilised track. The same is the case for Cork, where we have put our European money behind the first phase of the Cork metropolitan rail plan. We have to follow up with a second phase of investment and build new stations in areas such as Blackrock, Monard, Blarney or Little Island. Then we can build. I recall that in Little Island alone, we could house approximately 10,000 people. It is a stunning location that is right on the Lee and it has a railway station in the middle of it. That is the way to go.

The same is the case for Limerick, as the Cathaoirleach will know. It has been phenomenal to show there is a sign of hope and progress. The reopening of the Shannon-Foynes rail line has been a spectacular example of how, when you do not get stuck in the planning system, you can actually deliver reasonably quickly. In fairness to Irish Rail, it is building at speed and we need to take that example of quick building, and extend that metropolitan network in Limerick through Nenagh to Limerick, Shannon, Limerick Junction and get new stations in Ballysimon and Moyross and re-open the station in Raheen industrial estate for all those new workers going in there. That can again all be done with existing assets. If I were to come and say we have to build new railway lines, it would cost into the billions of euro. It would be incredibly expensive but by using the existing, under-utilised assets, we are talking about hundreds of millions, not billions of euro. It would transform Limerick city. We need that, because it will be good for Dublin. It will not just be everyone competing for housing in Dublin and it is the same for Galway.

It is not just heavy rail and I refer to the likes of a light rail system in Galway. We are starting with a really ambitious BusConnects project. As soon as we get this cross-city project through planning, and we have been waiting on what is a relatively simply initial project for a long time, it will lay the groundwork for the development of light rail in Galway. As I said, this project will not cost billions of euro, because we are using existing assets, but it will require a significant political commitment. For all the talk about all the billions of euro coming from AIB, Apple or whatever, the truth is that we are really constrained in capital on the transport side. We have projects costing €100 billion in development and €35 billion in the existing NDP. We therefore need to prioritise, and I think we should prioritise those sorts of public transport projects, which will transform the country in a way that will solve the housing crisis, as well as the transport one. For a further example of that happening, we are doing up Galway station. There is a really significant development of the station there. Apartments are going in right beside the station. One does not need a car in those circumstances, because there is a state-of-the-art, high-quality public transport system on one's doorstep. People will vote for that because that is where they will want to live. That is where we need to go not just because of climate, but to address the housing issues as well.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister for that very comprehensive answer, which is much appreciated. I will go to colleagues now and Deputy O’Rourke is first.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

I thank the Minister for his opening statement. On the delivery of renewables, the pipeline and the trajectory, there is some concern based on recent analysis that we are not on target, or that we are not either connecting or getting enough projects to and through the planning process to deliver on the ambitious targets for 2030.

A recent example might relate to RESS 4 and the amount auctioned. There was 1.14 GW of wind and 925 GW of solar. The Minister will get the point.

Issues we are very familiar with are planning and trying to get through the planning process. There are plans to reform the planning system but there was a bottleneck at the back end of last year. We spoke about this before. There was some movement in this regard earlier this year but there seems to be a bottleneck again, based on the figures coming out, particularly for onshore wind energy.

With regard to connections, only 0.5 GW of wind and 0.8 GW of solar were granted planning permission last year. In 2023, only 0.6 W of new renewable energy capacity was added to the grid. It is a question of connections. When I meet people in the sector, they always point to planning issues and the grid. Addressing me, and I am sure the Minister, they always use the term "the drumbeat of actions". I am referring to regularly and consistently feeding projects into the pipeline at an early stage. Not all of them come to fruition. Could the Minister talk about the landscape? Coming to the end of the Dáil term, there is ambition, but how would he mark progress on the real delivery of renewables projects in the past 12 months and the barriers, which we all acknowledge exist? What are the barriers and how are they being addressed? Will it require greater delivery and heightened ambition in the remaining years to meet the targets for 2030?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I thank the Deputy. I agree with him. First, I want to focus on renewables and the electricity sector in general. The two are completely connected. We are moving towards a renewable electricity system. Addressing the transport sector is probably the hardest thing. The electricity sector is probably proving to be the fastest in making the change, which is understandable because there are huge economic and security advantages to it, along with others, and we do have skills in the area. I believe I referred in my opening remarks to a reduction of approximately 21% in the first year. I understand the SEAI assessment in the first six months of this year is continuing into the year. It is not just about the roll-out of renewables; it is also about the benefit of interconnection, efficiency, storage and a range of another initiatives, but the renewables will be key. We know where we need to go to. We need 9 GW of onshore wind energy, 8 GW of solar energy and 5 GW of offshore wind energy by 2030. We now have approximately 5 GW, 1.5 GW and 0 GW, respectively. However, with regard to all three, I am very confident that if we can overcome the planning and legal difficulties we have, we can meet our environmental targets and significantly enhance our economic competitiveness. It is in our legal system, not just the planning system, that the bottlenecks are starting to appear.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

What does the Minister mean by saying it is not just the planning system but also the legal system?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I am referring to the time it takes to get through a legal process. That is equally an issue. The planning and legal systems have proven to be a genuine bottleneck. The planning system was particularly bad in recent years due to difficulties in An Bord Pleanála. We did not have a large number of projects coming through the planning system to go into the auction system. That was a genuine failing. That is being addressed. We have seen a very significant increase in resources. There are now 310 staff in An Bord Pleanála. There is a need to publish the review of the national planning framework so we can also address the planning issues at local council level. The truth is that there are councils right across the country that have effectively ruled themselves out of the renewables revolution, and that is going to create great difficulties. We are going to examine how the local development plans help us in meeting the strategic aims.

I mentioned the courts system. Even though many projects got through the planning process, many went straight into judicial review. We have resourced the High Court and introduced the environmental courts to try to ensure the process does not take inordinate time – obviously, people have legal rights – and place an inordinate cost burden on the Irish people.

To reiterate what the Deputy said, I absolutely agree the drumbeat of actions is what we need, backed up by good planning so we have projects ready to go. That is happening. The RESS 4 auction last week or the week before was successful. More than 2 GW of capacity are to be added to our system. Both wind and solar are doing well. We wanted to keep the price below the €100 benchmark. It is a case of real capability.

Similarly with offshore wind, it is a question of the drumbeat. We had the first ORESS 1 Cabinet meeting yesterday. We agreed and signed off on the DMAP for the south coast. That now goes to the Oireachtas to be approved. On approval, it becomes a formal plan. I am absolutely confident that the phase 1 projects are all going to planning as we speak. Subject to them getting through the planning system in a timely manner, I am absolutely confident we can meet the 5 GW offshore wind target and leap on from there. The DMAP in the southern area could deliver at least another 5 GW or 6 GW of power. Going to a plan-led system makes things predictable and, as the Deputy said, routine. We will have the second ORESS auction early next year. It is a matter of taking the political and planning risk out of the investment decision or lowering it as much as we can. It cannot be taken out completely. By lowering it, the cost of these massive capital projects is reduced, reducing the cost of electricity for people.

We have had a genuine delay because of legal and planning issues in recent years, but we can and will overcome them. We will deliver.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

Can I have an update on the energy security review? It has potentially significant implications in the years ahead. I believed we were expecting a further update around the summertime. I am aware that we had the draft document at the back end of last year. Could the Minister give an update on the work ongoing on this?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The Deputy will recall that was very much centre stage in our minds because of international developments in which pipelines, including the Nord Stream and Baltic gas pipelines, and fibre-optic networks were taken out. If this happened to the two gas interconnectors coming into this country, it would have very significant repercussions for the Irish public, which we have to try to avoid. The energy security issue is one that we are continuing to examine in real detail. The conditions were made very clear in the report and in discussions at the Oireachtas committee and elsewhere. The facility was to be a strategic one to provide security, not to increase gas consumption. That was the key objective. It was to be temporary, not commercial, in nature, and it was to be a strategic reserve in the event of a gas outage. Further analysis is being done.

One of the issues I am considering further, on which I need to get further research and information, relates to the timeline for introducing such a facility and the timelines within which gas demand may fall to reduce the risk. That has to be examined very closely. We know that, in this decade, we are at risk and are exposed.

It would not be possible to deliver a facility until early in the next decade. If we see then that we are starting to get into timelines of having such a dramatic reduction in gas use, particularly in the electricity generation sector, would it be an alternative way to meet the security risk? In other words, by investing significantly, for example, in further electricity interconnectors with the UK or France or what is fast-evolving storage capability, would it be possible, particularly in electricity production, to be able to manage? By what year or how soon would we see a fall in gas demand occurring faster than originally expected whereby it may make the case for investment in some of the other security measures? This further research is something I have called for and that the Department is looking at before going back to the Oireachtas with detailed analysis.

Deputy Darren O'Rourke

Does the Minister have a sense of a timeline on this? When did he seek the additional information?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

It will still take number of months. Even if proceed as we are already going, without the further analysis which I asked to be developed, it would still be a number of months because it is highly complex. Very good analysis has been done by Gas Networks Ireland looking at the technology that would be best used. It is fair to say that some of the lessons from this are different from what would have been expected a year or six months ago, in terms of the technicalities of what a boil-off rate might be if we use an LNG terminal or what the refill mechanisms are. It is down to the technical issues. This work has been done extensively by Gas Networks Ireland.

As I have said, even in the past two years, and last year in particular, what we have seen in the electricity system is quite a significant change which perhaps no one was modelling or predicting. There is the role and benefit of the interconnectors we have with the UK, and we are about to open up another one in the coming weeks between Ireland and Wales. It will start to go through its testing before it is fully energised. The ability for such interconnection to radically reduce gas demand has taken out coal-fired production and helped us deliver significant emissions reductions. This and the far faster roll-out of solar and storage technologies than some might have expected deserve for us to consider what exactly are the implications of these changes, even in the past year, in any investment decision.

Deputy Richard Bruton

I thank the Minister for his presentation. I have to say I struggle to keep track of whether we are on target, off target or ahead of target in the various areas. I am interested to know how this is done across government. I presume there is Cabinet committee and there are critical indicators that the Minister or Taoiseach tracks. Could this in some way be shared with the committee? Even though I take more than a passing interest in this, I struggle to keep up with it.

Similarly with regard to the Climate Advisory Council, which produces very good work and is submitting additional recommendations to be integrated in the 2025 plan, how are its recommendations collated by the Department across all the sectors? How are they integrated into next year's plan? Could we see in advance those that are under consideration? It seems to have mentioned many things. There is the electric vehicle fall-off now and we have not really delivered on the charging infrastructure which is still out in draft. It also speaks about buildings where we are missing the boat to some degree on shallow retrofits. It has mentioned 250,000 buildings which have been relatively recently built that could easily switch to heat pumps with a relatively low-cost impact. It has mentioned battery capacity and auctions for battery capacity, presumably to avoid curtailed power. We have not yet seen the wind guidelines. I struggle to keep up with the latest measures that we should be considering on which we should be holding Ministers other than the Minister, Deputy Ryan, to account. The committee has been given a role. It was envisaged we would have a more forensic role than we actually do. I am interested in hearing the Minister's take on this and whether we could do better.

I was interested in the Minister's point on the need for the national planning framework and the climate action plan to be more closely integrated. Perhaps I am wrong but my reading of the latest plan is that it has toned down a little the ambition for the four cities other than Dublin and is seeking more towns and villages that could facilitate integrated compact development. I wonder whether we have the capacity to think this out at the lower level. We have not really done it very well in the four cities other than Dublin, as the Minister rightly said. Where is this thinking being done about giving councils, if they are the ones to design these more integrated compact living settlements, the necessary infrastructure? Where is this happening in the system? That is a question I have on the national planning framework.

I have a very specific question. I have been looking to see the old marginal abatement cost, MAC, curves. I know some people do not like them but they give an indication of what different things might cost. I cannot find them any more in the plan. Have they been abandoned? They certainly give an idea of various sectors and what they ought to be able to do and where we might look for the next step if a sector is failing.

The European Green Deal is sending a lot of new frameworks shooting down the track at us, certainly in the construction sector where we will have to have whole-life assessment of emission impacts. We will have to look at embedded carbon and many other things. To what extent has green procurement become the leader in applying this? The State is acquiring large amounts of property. Have we got to grips with genuine green procurement which is pushing the envelope of where we go on these things?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I thank Deputy Bruton. It is not easy to get your head around this because it is so complex. It is a wicked problem in the first place and while, in many cases, the solutions are very beneficial and are at the centre of an industrial revolution, they are in many sectors and they are technical, and this is difficult. Keeping on track of how we are doing is the job of the EPA. Its annual update, the most recent of which was published earlier in the summer, is critical. It ties our reporting system to the UN reporting rules. Ultimately, we have to think about this within the Paris legal agreement, the UNFCCC-----

Deputy Richard Bruton

There are also policy tools.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

This year, the EPA's sectoral assessment reasonably gives the most accurate sense of the showing in each sector. I read them in my introduction, with decreases in agriculture of 4.6% and in residential of 7% while transport had an increase of 0.3%. This is the baseline for this entire approach. It is encouraging that there is progress. It was even more encouraging last week when it was reported in the Irish Examiner that the assessment of MaREI, the independent UCC research centre which is probably one of our best modelling centres, is that we are on track to meet the first five-year budget. I would be the most thrilled person if this bears out to be true. It will be very challenging because it requires the 6.8% reduction we had last year to increase to 8%. This is very tricky but we are on track. What we are seeing happening in our country is not insignificant. We are starting to show real capability. This should give the Irish people heart because it is through their work that it is happening.

All of this independent modelling is very useful and it helps the EPA and the Department but ultimately the EPA is the arbiter because it holds the international assessment of what we are doing, which are the ground rules for this process.

The Climate Change Advisory Council has a similar role. There are various bodies involved, but its first critical role is to provide an independent assessment of where we are in meeting these budgets under the law. The EPA tells you what the facts are, but the Climate Change Advisory Council tells you what the implications are and what you need to do in response. The Oireachtas committee also has that scrutiny and oversight, and goes beyond that to hold each Minister to account. The Climate Change Advisory Council is working well. Marie Donnelly is a superb chair. It has technical and economic expertise. Its reports are taken seriously and are beneficial. I will take some of the examples mentioned. It is true what they say. We are not rolling out enough heat pumps. That is one area where we need to go further and faster. We need to respond to its policy suggestions and ideas, looking at how we reduce the cost, or how we incentivise them through grants or whatever different mechanisms. That is an example where it provides a useful pointer to where we need to go. It is similar with battery storage. It backs up what I said earlier. That may be evolving. The price of batteries has come down so significantly it may open up opportunities that people did not expect two or three years ago. The council's ability to see what is happening in real time and give advice to Government is very useful.

EVs are more complicated because it is part of a wider international shift. We have seen a drop in EV purchases across north-west Europe. We still have 135,000 EVs on the road. I am reasonably confident we will meet our target of 195,000 EVs by the end of next year, but we need to see a step up. The roll-out of charging is happening. This summer we agreed high-speed charging and are building out the high-speed chargers in our motorway network. There are approximately 17 stations with banks of really high-speed chargers. More than 200 sports clubs will have sports club destination charging. That makes sense to me. You go for training or are watching the kid and you can charge at the same time. That is real. It is contracted and happening and will roll out.

I turn to the national planning framework and whether we can get that compact development. The national planning framework always had three components, to my mind. In summary, it was promoting better balanced regional development, compact development and low-carbon development. The Deputy is right. We will have to look at what the figures say when it is published. It may be looking at further increased populations in some of the eastern counties, particularly counties surrounding Dublin. It is emphatic and clear, however, that will only be sustainable and work if it is on the back of public transport - the rail investment I mentioned, or BusConnects and other public transport services. That is happening. Dart+ West is through the planning system. It has to get through the legal system now, but I am confident that can happen quickly. If it does, we will build out. We have the trains on order. We are ready to go with running the new battery-electric trains to Drogheda and the new ICRs on that entire network so we have the capacity to cope with further growth.

I go back to what I said to Deputy Leddin. If it is just the east coast, then the whole country just tips over into the east coast. That is not in the interest of everyone on the east coast, because that would just force property prices ever higher. It makes sense for us to invest in the same compact development in Limerick, Galway, Waterford and Cork in particular. I mention the cities because Dublin is not competing with Cork or Limerick, but there are benefits in the context of cities as that is where we can do compact development easier and make the economics of high-quality compact development work. That will be the battle in the national planning framework. If it is just a continuation of our traditional development model of greenfield sprawl, it will not work. It will not work in economic, planning or environmental terms. It will not work socially. We have to make sure we are consistent in implementing the national planning framework.

With regard to the MAC curves, I do not know where they are gone. Like the Deputy, I always found them useful. Some people believed they were a bit too simplistic or overused. We relied on and benefited from a lot of good work with McKinsey, which I found capable in assisting our Department through the recent years of the climate action plan process. MAC curves are very much associated with McKinsey, which is not providing the same level of direct consultancy support for us at present. Maybe that is why MAC curves are not quite as centre stage. I would not rule out their use in the future where it is appropriate.

I turn to procurement and the green new deal. We are in the closing months of this Government. One of the challenges for the next Government will be implementing all of the legislation that the previous European Commission, Parliament and Council of Ministers have approved. A phenomenal amount - I think there are 25 major pieces - of European legislation has been passed in the past three years in fuels, building standards, renewables, energy efficiency, aviation and so many different areas. That is the bedrock of our regulatory and economic direction. To answer the Deputy's question, the likes of the energy performance building directive will steer us towards higher standards, not just in knocking down everything and building new, but in refurbishing buildings and in promoting heat pumps in every way we can. The challenge for my two Departments is to get the transposition of that legislation through in order that we can go into our Presidency of the European Union in 2026 able to show we are part of the leading nations in taking this competitive and strategic direction.

I know the Deputy is an economist by trade. One of the significant developments in the summer and spring, but particularly in recent weeks, is the publication of Enrico Letta's paper on the need for stronger European markets in capital and energy and Mario Draghi's report from last week on the need to recognise that the core of this competitiveness future for Europe is around the electrification of everything, the roll-out of renewables and the development of grids. That is where the industrial revolution of our time is happening. Our strategic interest in this State is in being one of the leading deliverers of that vision of the future, including being more integrated with our European colleagues and the UK. I was in London last week. The more interconnection we have with the UK, the better-placed we will be to be economically competitive. It is about delivering the legislation, following Draghi's direction and focusing on being fast in delivery, particularly through our courts and our planning system. That is what we need to do.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I thank the Minister for the presentation. I think he commented in response to Deputy O'Rourke that we are on track. He does not mean we are on track to meet our targets, does he?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That is what I understand from our best modelling agency in Cork, the university MaREI centre. That is just from reports in the media. I have not talked to it since, but my understanding is that it is saying we seem to be on track to meet our first carbon budget. If that transpires, that would be a remarkable achievement because it requires such an incredible leap.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Does the Minister agree with the EPA projection that we are on track to miss our first two carbon budget targets, even with additional measures, by between 17% and 27%?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That is what I said when I was qualifying. According to the latest research from our best modelling university, to meet it would still require at least an 8% per annum reduction. We delivered 6.8% last year so it would be a scaling up from that. It is no small challenge before us.

Deputy Paul Murphy

With regard to the 6.8% reductions, what percentage of that is down to the recalculations of historical greenhouse gas inventories?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That did not help us on our land use side. We have started to separate out how we treat land-use emissions, like a lot of European and other countries, recognising that there is a completely different characteristic. My understanding is that land-use emissions last year went from approximately 3.9 million tonnes source of emissions to between 5 million and 6 million tonnes. I apologise, I will get that figure. In other words, there was significant deterioration in our emissions from the land-use sector.

That is primarily because the science keeps changing with regard to the reality when it comes to the counting of emissions, particularly from forestry and the planting of forests on peat soil. The assessment of those shows emissions of 5.614 Mt of carbon dioxide equivalent, an increase of 40%. This significant increase is due to the change to the scientific understanding of what is happening in our forests, as well as the fact that a lot of the forests from the 1980s and 1990s in our forestry system are being felled. That is also worsening our land use emission figures.

Another example to show how these things keep changing is that, on the positive side, there also has been a reassessment of Teagasc's research, which was originally uncertain. While the EPA seemed a bit cautious about it initially, it has now confirmed that the level of carbon storage in our wetland soils was higher than expected because the level of drained soils was lower than had been previously assessed.

The whole area of land use emissions is really complex. It is best to treat it in a slightly different way by following the European distance to trajectory rules rather the sectorial approach that applies to other sectors. It will get harder before it gets better, particularly because of the changing of our forestry system and the clearfelling of large areas of forest that were planted 30 or 40 years ago.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I will come back to that point. To clarify, the Minister is saying the recalculations had a negative effect. Without those recalculations, and with the current policies being implemented, our greenhouse gases emissions would have fallen by more than the figure of 6.5% or 6.8% that is contained in the report.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Yes. We have further complexities which are going to have to be ironed out early next year. We also have a black box of unallocated emissions which we need to reduce from other sectors from other new activity. To go back to what Deputy Bruton said, the complexity of this is sometimes challenging. Our land use emissions are not helping us at the present time. They are making it harder to meet our overall target.

Deputy Paul Murphy

In the context of these historical emissions, the EPA report states that these revisions together have reduced the agricultural sector emissions by, on average, 1.4 Mt of carbon dioxide per annum for the years from 2018 to 2023 or, in total, by approximately 8.5 Mt over the six-year period.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Agriculture is slightly different because in that sector we are able to count. It is not just about carbon dioxide but also nitrous oxides. Last year, the headline figure I gave was a reduction of approximately 4.6%. A lot of that was accounted for by the fact that our use of fossil-based synthetic fertilisers had significantly reduced - by approximately 30% - over the previous two years. The agriculture sector is actually bringing a significant reduction.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Maybe I am missing something here. The EPA is saying it recalculated how it looked at historical emissions. As I understand it, that is included in the reduction in carbon emissions. The Minister is saying that is true, presumably.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Yes.

Deputy Paul Murphy

He is not contesting that. There are other revisions, however, that are not mentioned in this report but which effectively counteract that and more.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The science around land use emissions keeps changing in terms of our understanding of what the best estimate from scientists is, the impact of our use of wetlands, the nature of our forestry system and the land use impacts of what we are doing. There have been some positive developments in the scientific understanding in that we did not have as much drained land as we thought, which helped us in terms of a lower emissions profile. On the other hand, as for the understanding of the impact of forestry on wetlands and a changing Irish forestry, because we do not have as much new afforestation occurring now as we did 30 or 40 years ago, when the commercial forests planted then, often with Sitka spruce, lodgepole pine and so on, come to be cleared, that will also reduce our carbon store in the land use area.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Why are these historical revisions not mentioned in the report?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

In which report?

Deputy Paul Murphy

In this EPA report. It includes the point about the revisions in agriculture and says it amounts to a certain number.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I do not know why the EPA did not include that. Maybe my official, Mr. Marc Kierans, is able to address that point.

Deputy Paul Murphy

I may have missed it. In any event, the Minister is saying on the record that none of the emissions reductions are down to the historical revisions.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

No. In fact, in land use, our emissions are becoming-----

Deputy Paul Murphy

I am not referring to land use on its own but, rather, as an entirety, the Minister is saying these historical-----

Deputy Eamon Ryan

No. That was not the reason for our 6.8% reduction last year.

Deputy Paul Murphy

It had no part in it.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

It was primarily down to the changes in power generation and in the residential, agriculture and industrial sectors. Those are the sectors in which we saw real reductions.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Some of the reductions in the agriculture sector were because of these historical revisions. It is in the report.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I may let my official, Mr. Marc Kierans, speak to that point because it is quite a technical issue.

Mr. Marc Kierans

There are a number of issues in this regard. First, when the inventory is published by the EPA every year, it does refinements. Those refinements are backdated to 1990. That is the first thing to say. That is our UN reporting process. The carbon budgets were based on a 2018 figure at a time when the carbon budgets were created. There is a bit of disparity in that regard and there will be a need for a recalibration at a certain point in the budget process. While there is noise in the system, that 6.8% is substantially down to emissions reductions. There is a need, however, at some point, to do a bank conciliation statement on this process. There will be a revision next year and in the years following that.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

There are many different accounts and timelines to measure from. Should it be measured from 1990, 2005 or 2018? This Government sets its targets from 2018 because that was the most recent year in which information was available, on the establishment of the Government, on the drafting of the climate law. Going back to what I said earlier, in the end, we are best to always rely on EPA data, whatever way it wants to adjust it. EPA data is independent and is done to the international rules-based systems. Ultimately, that is where we have to account to under the UNFCCC. It is through the UN accounting reporting systems. Whatever changes happen in that system, as Mr. Kierans said about the rebalancing the EPA does as part of UN reporting systems, we have to accept that. That is its role. We live within the accounting rules it provides. They are UN rules, effectively.

Deputy Paul Murphy

While I do not want to get bogged down in this, which is, obviously, technical, there is a difference between the Minister saying none of this is down to historical revisions and Mr. Kierans saying the reductions are substantially down to emissions.

Mr. Marc Kierans

I never used the word “substantially”.

Deputy Paul Murphy

He did. He can check the transcript. Does Mr. Kierans agree with the Minister that none of the 6.8% is down to the historical revisions?

Mr. Marc Kierans

The EPA report has pointed out that there is a need to disaggregate some of this data. It has been very clear in that regard. There will be an exercise required to do that. There is a provision for it in the Act to allow for the revision of the budgets at a certain point in time.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Okay. To go back to the LULUCF, the Minister mentioned it is not appropriate to treat this area like we treat other sectors in terms of sectorial targets. However, it is in the climate Act that we need to have a sectorial emission target for LULUCF. We do not have that. The Minister is now saying he has a changed approach. Is that going to result in an amendment to the climate Act? Will the work the Minister is talking about be done before the election?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

We are looking at that legal interpretation. People will have various views on that. It is not certain. There are other arguments that it is necessary and that the Act does not specifically mandate a sectorial target in each area per se. There has been a change and we have been upfront in saying that in this committee and elsewhere. That was because the facts changed. I am not talking about the facts changing in terms of numbers changing or that it became more challenging but, rather, that the level of uncertainty is not going to go away for the next decade. It is going to continue to adjust, according to the best scientists. In those circumstances, it is best to go towards an EU counting system where it is about your distance to the target rather than about what the exact target level is. It shows whether you are making progress.

The land use review that we established is probably the most important of all the climate actions we have taken and all the administrative structures we have put in place. It is chaired by Geraldine Tallon, who is a former Secretary General of the Department of the environment. Professor Mark Scott of UCD, who is probably one of the most eminent scientists in the area, and Rory O'Donnell, who is a former head of the National Economic and Social Council, provide real leadership in pulling together the Departments of housing and agriculture and my own Department. They will have to deliver this autumn. A full report will be available early next year but they will be presenting further evidence on the optimisation we need to make in carbon reduction storage, biodiversity restoration and rural development. Admitting the scientific reality about how emissions are measured is the appropriate thing to do. It ensures everyone involved knows and understands some of the complexities as we come to solutions.

Deputy Paul Murphy

Does the Minister have any concerns about the strategy of attracting as many data centres as we can? We keep adding more and more of them to the grid. They are now accounting for 20% of our total electricity consumption. They are heading for 30% by 2030. Does the Minister have any concerns about that strategy in the context of the explosion of AI? It was not really part of the discussion when this strategy was developed. It is reported that AI will double data centre electricity consumption between now and 2030. Ireland, as a data centre capital, is going to be disproportionately hit by that.

There have been a number of worrying reports recently. Bloomberg has said it will open new gas power plants in the US to fuel this AI. A report in The Guardian the other day discussed how Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are systematically under-reporting the amount of carbon emissions as a result of their data centres. Has the Government done any work to check that our assessment, in terms of the emissions from Amazon or wherever else, is accurate?

If we are going to massively expand energy usage, it will be a threat to the achievement of a rapid transition globally. An AI Google answer takes ten times more energy than a regular Google answer. You may have seen a suggestion that a Google search for "smoking while pregnant" will result an AI answer saying that doctors recommend smoking two to three cigarettes a day while pregnant, so it is less accurate. People find Google less and less useful because of this AI but it is using more and more energy. Every picture that is made for useless nonsense, using huge amounts of energy, is a problem. We are disproportionately affected by it. Does this give the Minister cause for concern? Does it cause the Minister to support our position that we need to stop building future data centres until we are able to get to a zero-carbon position?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I was glad to be quoted earlier this week in a news article in the Financial Times, in which I said we must ensure data centres live within the really strict climate limits we all must live within. Interestingly, this summer I attended an informal meeting of the EU Environment Council, at which the best international scientists, including those from the IPCC, outlined their assessment that there are approximately 200 GT of remaining emissions if we are to stay below the 1.5° benchmark. There is a 50% probability of living within that, which is incredibly tight. We cannot underestimate the scale of the challenge. As I said in the newspaper earlier this week, data centres can live within climate limits and bring real benefits to our country. We should not turn our backs on the development of data centres, but we should make sure we become a real world leader in how we deliver them in a low-carbon or zero-carbon way. This can be done through extensive coupling of renewable power to data centres and the provision of backup.

I do not agree with what Deputy Murphy mentioned with regard to the example in the US, where new data centres might be fired by gas. I explicitly wrote to Gas Networks Ireland to say that this is not the strategy we should adopt. I do not believe gas-fired data centres could live within climate limits and that is why, as climate Minister, I gave a clear policy direction that this is not what we should be doing. Furthermore, to go back to what I was saying earlier, we should be focusing on battery storage, good interconnection, good grid systems and good use of anaerobic digestion. One of the developments happening in our country as we speak is a rapid increase in the potential availability of low-carbon gas from anaerobic digestion, which could be used as backup fuel to give data centres the security they need for a low-carbon operation.

Our biggest constraint is the electricity grid. That is sometimes hard to understand because you think it is just the wires to something. Actually, it takes time and is a real challenge to build out a grid in sufficient speed. Regardless of what your view on the issue of data centres is, the electricity grid is a real constraint in our country and we have to address it. We also have to be a leader in delivering sustainable data centres. We can then use artificial intelligence that will have uses that may be of real benefit. I am interested in working on the old issue of energy access and electricity to the likes of countries in Africa. I would see the application of artificial intelligence mapping satellite and other data to give a really good assessment of how you build out that grid. This is an example of how such technologies could be used to address some of the underlying problems.

I will finish with what I said earlier. Mario Draghi's report is clear and simple. It is true that if Europe wants to be competitive and to have a stable and secure economy, we need to invest in the grid and the sort of infrastructure that would make that happen. Ireland, more than any other country, should do this because we benefit significantly from the digital industries that are here. However, it has to be zero carbon.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister and Deputy Murphy. We can now go into the second round. My apologies, I did not see that Senator Higgins had indicated to speak. She is currently muted. I will come back to the Senator. I have a quick question for the Minister while the microphone is being sorted out.

The Minister mentioned that the DMAP for the south coast went through the Cabinet on Tuesday. All going well, I do not believe there will be much opposition from the Oireachtas in two weeks time and it will go through. Am I right in saying that the resources we are working with on the south coast DMAP will be freed up and can then work towards a west coast DMAP?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

It went through the Cabinet yesterday and it will go to the Oireachtas next. Once it is approved there, it will be operational. I believe our Department did a really good job. There must have been 25 officials working full time on this for the past year. It was really extensive. We had something like 70 public consultation engagements. I was in Kilmore Quay earlier this summer meeting some of the local fishermen. Our fisheries liaison officer and others were there. It is a hugely important economic project for the State. It is much better to be on a plan-led approach. You can take things into account before you start, rather than some developers going out and claiming one bit of the sea as theirs by sticking a little badge on it, as happened in the Klondike, and stating that it is their part of the Irish ocean when it is not. It belongs to the Irish people and we manage it in a plan-led way. We avoid the more sensitive fishing grounds, breeding grounds, shipping lanes and cable routes. This de-risks projects. I am very confident that we will see that auction system work early next year when it kicks in.

What do we do next? First, we have to get the phase 1 projects through planning and then built. We have to do the auction for phase 2. We have to go to the next stage. Depending on how the phase 1 projects go, that will involve looking back at the east coast but will also involve going west and south.

The next focus should and will be on designating experimental areas, particularly for the development of floating offshore wind. This is critical for the west because water depths there mean that fixed-bottom generation will not be a viable economic option. Actually, it could be in some areas, for example, certain places in the north west, but if the Cathaoirleach went 5 km west of the Cliffs of Moher in his county, he would see depths of 100 m. If he went 20 km out, the waters would be even deeper. As such, the west has potential for floating offshore.

Interestingly, the UK had a floating auction result last week for a 400 MW experimental project. Its price was still a multiple of ours, so it is not commercial yet. We should consider designating areas for 200 MW generation. It would not need to be a large designation, only a site, as what we need to develop now is a single experimental project. Examining certain sites would be interesting. For example, we should and will consider southern waters, where we might be dealing with sites of 12 m to 14 m wave heights and wind speeds of up to 10.5 m/s. Those characteristics are different than those on the west coast, where the waters are not only deeper, but there are wave heights of up to 18 m and wind speeds are higher. The latter are of potential benefit. If they got up to 11 m/s or 12 m/s, the power output from that every evening would be a multiple. The growth in power output is not linear. This should be our next step. The Cabinet held a competitiveness meeting the week before last and we agreed that our offshore task force on renewables would set up a specific working group to advance test sites for floating offshore.

An Cathaoirleach

To be clear, is the Minister saying that the test sites would be on the south coast, the west coast or both?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

My instincts tell me they should be on both. We should look to develop in both waters because they have different characteristics. Under phase 2 of its DMAP, where we are going off the Waterford-Wexford coast is quite advanced in that the waters are probably deeper than those where any existing fixed-bottom offshore wind farm has been built to date. We are already heading into cutting-edge developments in terms of how to apply this technology in a deeper, windier and, therefore, more hostile environment. We can and will learn from what is happening in the UK and France.

This does not mean that Shannon Foynes is not already involved. One of the projects under phase 1 is the Sceirde Rocks wind farm off the west coast of Connemara. I expect it will be served from Shannon Foynes Port, and many of the skills and capabilities involved in the wind farm’s deployment will build up the skills and capabilities we can use in further iterations.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister. I call Senator Higgins.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I might put two sets of connected questions. I will get a quick answer to the first and then revert.

Regarding the DMAPs, it was striking to hear that the important environmental and economic project of protecting our marine areas has not progressed during the Government’s term. It looks like all of the building and planning is going to happen even though marine protected areas have still not been designated and the promised legislation has not been drafted. That is regrettable.

The Minister has spoken a great deal about planning. I am concerned that there sometimes seems to be a narrative that planning is the reason we do not have housing and so on. I do not accept the argument that planning is the obstacle to delivering on these issues. In the planning legislation that is currently before the Houses, a decision has been taken to remove reference to the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act. The factors that the commission, planning authorities and the new An Bord Pleanála are being asked to consider in the course of their duties used to include the Act and the duties and obligations under it, yet those have been removed from the Bill. In the course of their duties, there is no longer reference to them having an obligation under the climate Act, creating a concern that our planning may end up moving against good climate decisions.

Regarding LNG, the Minister suggested that we were considering the energy review and the idea of something that might be temporary and public. The planning Bill, which will be back before the Seanad next week, explicitly proposes in Schedule 2 that “a terminal, building or installation ancillary to a terminal that is used for the liquefaction of natural gas or the importation, offloading and re-gasification of liquefied natural gas [that is, LNG],” would not only be allowed, but considered strategic infrastructure and allowed to bypass proper planning scrutiny. One of the legacies of this Government in its last weeks or months will potentially be a blueprint for LNG. Since such facilities will not be limited to public storage or temporary, how will we challenge the private actors? From what we saw in the Shell case, there is a significant unwillingness to challenge big energy actors once they have a footprint in Ireland. I am concerned that our planning proposals will move us backwards on climate significantly. The energy security review was clear that LNG was not the solution, yet it is being made a priority under the legislation. How do we reconcile that?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Regarding marine protected areas, I regret that the legislation has not been published. I expect it to be in the coming weeks and it can and should be enacted in the lifetime of this Government, although that depends on how long the Government goes. I agree it is regrettable that the legislation has not been delivered. This has been due to a series of complex legal issues between three Departments that needed to be resolved. My understanding is that they have been resolved now and it is purely a matter of the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel completing the drafting process as per the instructions that have finally been agreed. That legislation will be published shortly and I hope it will be enacted in the lifetime of this Oireachtas.

I do not believe that this reflects badly on the approach we have taken to the development of DMAPs. It is an ecological approach that contemplates our wider ambition to protect our natural systems, avoid conflict and follow a plan-led rather than a development-led approach. Therefore, the DMAPs do not require the marine protected area legislation to be passed to be effective. They stand up in their own right to the highest environmental standards.

In the past week or two, I have been checking on where the Planning and Development Bill is as regards its various amendments. It is a complex, 756-page Bill. I will put my trust in the Senators and Deputies who have been scrutinising it. It is probably the most scrutinised legislation that has gone through the Houses in my experience. It has been almost four years, and I do not know how many hours the committee sat for the Bill’s parliamentary review and discussion of its amendments.

Regarding what the Senator said about a facility being included as a possible development, there is no party in the Oireachtas or individual Member who thinks that we should not take this strategic approach rather than a commercial approach to-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

Minister, there is nothing that precludes such a facility being commercial under the Bill. The Seanad will do what we can, but this is a Government decision. Presumably, the Minister, who has responsibility for energy, had an input into deciding that LNG infrastructure was not just a possible project, but a strategic priority that should be allowed to bypass normal planning procedures because it is key strategic infrastructure.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

It is not a strategic priority for this Government, or I believe for the next Government-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

It is being inserted under Schedule 2 to the list of strategic infrastructure -----

An Cathaoirleach

Sorry Senator, let the Minister answer the question.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I know but we need to be accurate in the answers and they need to reflect the actual legislation.

An Cathaoirleach

The Senator can come back in. There is time for that so let the Minister answer.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

Sure.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

As I said, the Planning and Development Bill has to go through its process. What final text, wording or amendments are debated or discussed is not under my remit. One thing I have been clear on right from the start in this issue of how we provide energy security for our people is that it is not in any way warranted to see the development of a commercial LNG facility that is not in the strategic interest of the State to deliver energy security but is instead designed to expand or increase the volume of gas consumed or sold.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

The legislation contradicts that. My other questions relate to Gas Networks Ireland, GNI. We mentioned data centres and the Minister mentioned his regret. Him stating he has an opinion is not the same as him using his power as a Minister and as a member of the Government and Cabinet in respect of ensuring the legislation reflects a limit to commercial energy, which it does not. In fact it prioritises and gives advantage to these proposals. In addition in the context of GNI, the Climate Change Advisory Council has been really clear there should not be any new contracts, such as the many we have seen for individual gas-powered plants for data centres. It has stated that, legally, the laws do not allow GNI to enforce refusing of these connections and signing these contracts. The Climate Change Advisory Council has said there needs to be legislation. Will there be legislation? Rather than the Minister just expressing an opinion to GNI, will there be legislation to ensure we do not see these new connections for data centres?

Forestry, which is another concrete piece, is similar. The Minister mentioned the land use review. Is the review examining the mandates of Coillte and Bord na Móna? Coillte owns 7% of the State's land and we have the power to direct its mandate, which could be shifted to being environmentally focused rather than commercially focused. I have proposed legislation to do this. The Minister mentioned "commercial". Right now, Coillte's mandate is clearly commercial. The State as shareholder has written to say it wants Coillte to be cash generative, which is a very short-term frame, versus having an environmentally, socially and economically sustainable mandate which is something the NGOs have looked for and my proposed legislation seeks. Is shifting the mandates of Coillte and Bord na Móna being considered under the review and is that something the Government will advance either through my proposed legislation or through its own?

The transport brief has probably had shorter shrift in the discussions we had today but one aspect that is very important relates to the largely undocumented area of military emissions. We know there are significant numbers of military flights and military-contracted flights passing through our airspace, many of which carry weapons and munitions towards Israel and that will probably be used by Israel in its actions in Gaza. Regardless of where those weapons are used are the emissions associated with, both those flights and the arms industry and its actions, being monitored? What is the Minister's proposal on that and what action might be taken?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

The Senator raised three issues. First, with regard to data centres, the issue about connection applies there more than anything else and will be set out by the publication next month in the CRU's large energy users connections policy. That will set out some of the criteria we seek to apply.

It is not just writing to GNI. I have had very extensive meetings with the Irish companies that have real expertise in how data centres are built and bring real employment and benefits to the country, and also with the large cloud-based companies that would be the main customers. We are the ultimate customers anyway, as we have mobile phones, but I have met the suppliers of that service. In talking to them there is widespread acknowledgement and acceptance that we cannot go towards an islanded, gas-fired data centre system and that would be in breach of climate targets. That is-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

Backup generators are happening all of the time.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

That is a separate issue. That is an agreement I found universally accepted with the industry that wants to build these data centres as well as it being my own view.

Second, with regard to the mandate and the land use review, we are looking at the role of public lands across all objectives and it is multicriteria, such as restoration of nature as well as improving water quality and, more than anything else, rural development. It will be up to the Government to take the analysis presented by the land use review to decide on the mandates of Coillte or Bord na Móna as appropriate. That is a government function, informed by the analysis presented by the land use review, which is expected in the coming months.

Last, regarding emissions from military flights, the Department of Defence regulates the overflight of military vehicles. The Department of Transport has responsibility for civil aviation flights. We do not have the means to monitor or have restrictions on the basis of emissions on overflights. We have the basis if there is any understanding or concern that the overflights may be carrying munitions that would be in breach of our approach and rights under the Chicago convention. There is a wider issue across all of the aviation sector in terms of how is will live, including military, and military is a significant component of fossil fuel use in the world. I share the Senator's concern at how we will reduce that but it is not something we can directly monitor or restrict under the Chicago convention or any of the other provisions we have.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

I will not come back on that issue because we do not have the time. Even though we have powers we are not using them under the Chicago convention around flight inspections, for example.

I will ask a question because it is important. When the Minister answered the question about data centres, he mentioned his conversations with data centre owners. I am worried this mood music of what industry wants and what it says seems to be the thing rather than my actual questions about what legislative measures we take to say there cannot be gas connections, be it for backup generators or for central generators. Whatever about the benefits we mentioned there are questions about priorities and about the limited gigatonnes, as the Minister mentioned, that we have left on this shared planet and about AI and commercial activity for which we are not necessarily the customers and in many cases we are the targets. That is the priority.

I will ask final questions because I might not get to come in again. In terms of climate justice, does the Minister believe these are useful uses of the remaining gigatonnes left in the world? The other climate justice question relates to what we are discussing today, which is the climate action plan, in terms of the damage being done to developing countries that have done the least to cause this situation. We know a minimal interpretation Ireland's fair share of climate finance is that we should be paying more than €400 million per year but we have only committed to €225 million per year by 2025. Will that €225 million of climate finance be in the budget next year? Why is it not €400 million?

Globally, in terms of prioritisation, do we not need to take a stand against some areas that may indeed be profitable and economically beneficial for some but have a climate cost for all of us on this shared planet?

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Senator. Some of those questions may be for the Minister for Foreign Affairs if they concern international climate finance.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

No, they are valid questions for the Minister for climate.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

It is in the climate action plan, Chair.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I think they are valid questions. First, talking to people does not in any way diminish climate ambition or our ambition for climate justice. In particular, if one is in Government, there is an obligation to talk to people, listen, and share best practice and thinking.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

And to legislate where necessary.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Yes, to legislate.

To answer the question, the best regulatory approach is through a good regulatory system that is independent, which we have with the CRU. That is what is going to be delivered next month. We will not solve climate change by setting up barriers to people meeting, talking or thinking about best practice as to how we make this change. That is something I absolutely want to see happen.

I am very confident that we will meet what we were asked to do under the UN process, namely double our climate finance support. We will do that by delivering our €225 million commitment. It is a matter of pride for Ireland that this is largely directed towards climate adaptation, which the poorest countries rightly say is the area that tends to be forgotten. As a country, we have a proud record because we do not tend to tie it to trade or any motive other than delivering climate justice for the poorest countries in the world.

I will be going to New York next week. In the meetings I will be attending, I expect that this matter will be centre stage in advance of the further climate negotiations in Baku in November. We are in a very perilous place in terms of getting the scale of the investment we need. As the IEA assessed earlier this year, we need something like €4.5 trillion a year in climate action investment. On the international stage, I have, in our submissions, championed the fact that the real focus of the IEA should be on the €1.5 trillion that needs to go to the developing countries that are completely excluded from the capital markets at the moment. We will play our role in trying to change the international financial system and move it towards this more sustainable direction.

In what we are doing in not just the volume of the aid but the quality of how we deliver it, Ireland can speak authoritatively. You are never perfect-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

It is not solely aid. Some of it is not around aid, it is a matter of our loss and damage and other obligations.

Deputy Eamon Ryan

We were involved in international negotiations to change the United Nations agreement in order that it would be targeted towards the most vulnerable countries. That is an example of where that voice can be used to real effect sometimes.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

Will the €225 million be in the budget?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

I expect it will. We have committed to it and we should deliver it, yes.

An Cathaoirleach

We are moving away from the agenda of the meeting, which is to discuss the climate action plan but-----

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

This is in the climate action plan. I can quote the sections to the Chair, but it would bore him. There is a section on our international responsibility within the climate action plan.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Senator. There are no other questions, so we have reached the end of the session.

Senator Alice-Mary Higgins

If no one else wants to come in, I have a minor question in relation to taxation on SUVs and luxury vehicles. Reference was made to the taxation by weight that applies in France. This is a way of addressing the SUV issue. The majority of new vehicles owned in Ireland are SUVs. In France, the taxation on such vehicles increases by weight. Is that being looked at in the context of the budget?

Deputy Eamon Ryan

Our Department is looking at that. A proposal came from the tax strategy group, if I recall correctly. We are following up on that, but I cannot promise or predict what will be in the budget in two weeks' time.

An Cathaoirleach

I thank the Minister and his officials for attending. It has been a very useful and informative session.

The joint committee adjourned at 3.14 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 24 September 2024.