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LEGALLY BINDING LIMITS for greenhouse gas emissions from sectors such as agriculture and electricity are expected to be agreed by government next month.
Ireland has a number of climate targets in place all centred around the requirement to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 51% by 2030 and reach net zero emissions by 2050.
The country agreed its first carbon budgets earlier this year which set out an overall limit on emissions that the country must stay under to reach crucial climate goals.
Sectoral emissions ceilings – which will set a limit on emissions from different sectors over a certain time period – are currently being discussed within government departments.
Environment Minister Eamon Ryan will put forward a plan to government for approval in the coming weeks.
A department official said it is envisaged the sectoral ceilings will be signed off before the Dáil summer recess which is due to begin in mid-July.
The combined emissions limits between sectors will amount to the overall carbon budgets for certain time periods.
The first carbon budget covering 2021 to 2025, for example, allows for a total of 295 million tonnes (Mt) of emissions to be produced.
So agriculture, electricity and the other sectors will receive a certain portion of this budget up to 2025.
Each minister will be accountable for the emissions from their sector.
Even if the country achieves its overall goals in the years ahead, sectors will still be seen as non-compliant if they do not stay within their individual targets once they are signed off.
The government’s Climate Action Plan from 2021 already set out different emissions reduction targets for sectors.
The agriculture sector, responsible for the most GHG emissions, was targeted with the lowest reduction of 22% to 30% by 2030.
President of the Irish Farmers’ Association Tim Cullinan said farmers “fully realise” that emissions need to be reduced.
“Already farmers have done quite a lot,” he told RTÉ radio’s Morning Ireland today.
“We need to find a balance here because you have climate change and you have food production.”
Cullinan said he has a number of concerns he wants the government to address.
These include the economic and social role of agriculture in rural Ireland, how biogenic methane is treated and addressing the importance of food production.
Different targets heading for the same goal
All of the different emissions targets fall under the wider goals of the Climate Act from last year.
Climate science shows urgent action is needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce the many impacts of global warming.
The sectoral ceilings being decided at the moment will set emissions limits for electricity, transport, buildings, industry, agriculture and transport.
Civil servants across government departments have been meeting to work out the exact details of these limits.
A department official said the talks have been cooperative and positive.
The discussions are considering a number of factors including the cost of emissions reduction, limits of what each sector can achieve and fairness in how fast each sector can reduce emissions.
Ministers must appear before an Oireachtas committee if their sector fails to comply with emissions limits down the line.
Failure to comply with the sectoral ceilings could also result in fines from the EU for not hitting wider targets.
A department official said these fines would be paid from the budget of the minister whose sector failed to comply with the budgets.
Minister Eamon Ryan said earlier this month that “detailed technical analysis” is being carried out to inform and support the decision-making process of the sectoral emissions ceilings.
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Meanwhile, there’s China with their emissions in the billions compared to our millions of tonnes.
@Sequoia: unfortunately the Irish people have fully transitioned from Catholic Church virtue signaling with little trinkets and statues and nonsense to full on climate change virtue signal nonsense.
@Sequoia: per capita we’re fairly similar to China for emissions. We were way higher than them 10-15 years ago…… Info from your own data source
@Sequoia: yup, China ALSO needs to up their game. Everyone does.
@Paul Hedderman: per capita? There’s millions of people in China with no electricity and many more with barely any, no cars in the house and very little disposable income to purchase manufactured goods. As the poor people of China rise out of poverty their carbon footprint is going to rise exponentially, why do you think they are building so many coal powered electricity stations every year in China. Its not slowing down over there its speeding up. What we are doing is self sacrifice for zero global benefit. Our government were stupid to sign up to these targets and even more stupid to be writing stuff into law.
What happens when we outsource all our food production to cheaper countries? A) we get our food cheaper, b) our emissions drop c) the world emissions go up per kilo of food we produce due to transport and less energy efficient farming techniques d) when the countries we source our food from end up in conflict and can’t deliver us food our people starve.
We can’t save the world but we can feed our people and if we allow fracking and drilling for our oil and gas reserves we can secure our energy supply. If we set up renewable electricity generation through government companies we can actually make money from exporting electricity. Turn every roof in the country into a solar farm and export what we don’t need daily to other countries or use it to make hydrogen for winter supply.
Green party are a joke, people are choosing between putting fuel in the car or feeding their kids and they are trying to solve climate change which we can have zero effect on.
Another waste of time with Germany and china increasing coal output. More wasteful costs to the Irish. The Greens should never be on government again. Twice there now and the climate change getting worse not better.
As Germany opens up it coal burning power stations to fill the gap left by removing Russian supplied fuels. Not sure we should sign anything into law at this time when nations 10 times our size are doing the opposite. This may hurt the “green” agenda but it gives Germany an unfair advantage – these limits should be EU wife limits and not just Irish ones making Irish people poorer.
@Niall Ó Cofaigh: “if he jumps out of the window, should you do so too?”. I thought we unlearned this as kids.
Keeping the pressure on other countries to commit to a transition is a hell of a lot easier to do from a position as climate leader than climate laggard. One could perhaps also ask what the economic opportunities are of climate transition? I see many, perhaps you do not.
@Urban Living Dublin: raving looney bin stuff. We should be powering up our peat stations in these emergency times. Climate change can wait until people can afford to put food on the table for their kids.
If you think what we do here puts pressure on anyone your delusional at best.
When the Greens want it happens before their holidays. The rest of us have to wait and wait. No more Greens in Government.
On Your Bike Eamon Off to China l hope
Time to get these a holes out of government before they do any more damage
He’s an absolute dose.
The real scandal here is summer recess
This is beyond dumb. No penalty for individuals who are responsible for missing GHG limits. The fines proposed are nothing more than government moving money from one pocket to another. Hope this program does not represent what the brightest in the government can come up with. If it does Ireland is doomed.
Watch this spaceca stealth increase I bet
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