On 28 July 2022, the government reached agreement on Sectoral Emissions Ceilings across the economy. The development of Sectoral Emission Ceilings and the introduction of Carbon Budgets were provided for in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. The Act required the Climate Change Advisory Council to prepare, publish and submit a proposed Carbon Budget programme that would support a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, relative to 2018 emission levels, and the legally-binding national climate objective of achieving net zero emissions by 2050. The Climate Action Plan 2021 provided a detailed plan for taking decisive action to achieve a 51% reduction in overall greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and setting us on a path to reach net-zero emissions by no later than 2050, as committed to in the Programme for Government and set out in the Climate Act 2021.
The plan contains a range of measures which will reduce our consumption of coal, oil and gas over the coming decades, including:
- to increase the proportion of renewable electricity to up to 80% by 2030;
- increasing the uptake of carbon-neutral heating, and decreasing the embodied carbon in building materials;
- retrofit 500,000 homes by 2030;
- install 680,000 renewable energy heat sources in both new and existing residential buildings.
- Increased rollout of rural public transport through Connecting Ireland.
My Department will shortly launch a consultation on a review of the security of energy supply of Ireland’s electricity and natural gas systems, which will further consider our reliance on fossil fuels amongst other matters.
