Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 3 March 2021
75. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications he estimated number of credits from non-emissions trading system emissions the State expects to meet its targets under projected existing measures, WEM, and additional measures, WAM, scenarios under EU effort sharing regulations; and the estimated amount of revenue it is likely to be forfeited from not auctioning those credits at assumed high and low costs. [11575/21]
View answer76. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications the estimated cost in fines and purchase of credits for failing to meet EU targets between 2021 and 2030 under existing measures, WEM, and additional measures, WAM, scenarios. [11576/21]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 75 and 76 together. The EU Effort Sharing Regulation EU/2018/842 (ESR) established binding annual greenhouse gas emission targets for Member States for the period 2021–2030. These targets concern sectors outside of the EU Emissions Trading System, such as agriculture, transport, buildings and waste. The ESR sets Ireland a target of 30% reduction in emissions by 2030 compared to 2005 levels.
It is important to note that this target will be amended following the European Council’s decision, in December 2020, to increase ambition from its existing EU-wide 2030 target of 40% reduction to at least 55%, compared to 1990 levels. Legislative proposals to implement the new EU 2030 target, including revising Member States’ existing targets for 2030, are expected to be presented by the European Commission by June 2021.
Under the existing ESR targets, our total carbon budget for the 2021-2030 period is 384 MtCO2eq. The latest projections from the Environmental Protection Agency (published in July 2020) state that under the With Existing Measures scenario, Ireland will exceed the carbon budget by approximately 51 Mt CO2 eq over the 2021-2030 period assuming the Land-use, Land-use Change and Forestry (LULUCF) flexibility is fully utilised. Under the With Additional Measures scenario, the projections indicate that Ireland will have a surplus of approximately 8.9 Mt CO2 eq over the 2021-2030 period with full use of the LULUCF flexibility.
The scenario with additional measures is based on those policies and measures in Climate Action Plan 2019. Therefore, the implementation of the plan will mean no purchase of credits is required to meet our existing 2030 ESR target.
