Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 March 2021
68. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the credits his Department attributed from sustainable land use, land use change and forestry measures towards Ireland’s non-emissions trading system target under EU effort sharing regulations. [11568/21]
View answerUnder EU legislation adopted in May 2018, EU Member States have to ensure that greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) are offset by at least an equivalent removal of GHG emissions from the atmosphere for the period 2021 to 2030. The Regulation requires each Member State to ensure that accounted emissions from land use are entirely compensated by an equivalent removal of emissions from the atmosphere through action in the LULUCF sector. This commitment is referred to as the "no debit rule". For example, if a Member State converts forests to other land uses (deforestation), it must compensate for the resulting emissions by planting new forest (afforestation) or by improving the sustainable management of existing forest, croplands, grasslands or wetlands. In this way the "no-debit" commitment incentivises Member States to take actions that increase the absorption of emissions into agricultural soils and forests.
In recognition of the lower mitigation potential of the agriculture and land use sectors covered by the Effort Sharing Regulation (2018/842) (ESR), a LULUCF credit can be partially used to offset emissions under the ESR. If Ireland’s GHG emissions for a given year are in excess of the emission allocation for Ireland for that year, but if Ireland’s total accounted LULUCF emissions and removals are less than zero, then this “credit” can be taken into account for Ireland’s compliance that year. The cumulative quantity of such credits cannot exceed the maximum flexibility allocated to Ireland for the period 2021 to 2030, which is 26.8Mt CO2eq..
