Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
THE GOVERNMENT PLANS to create capacity for “more solar renewables in the next three years than the total amount of renewables we built in the last 20″, Minister for Climate Eamon has said.
The minister was speaking before the Oireachtas Committee on Climate Action today to take questions from TDs and Senators about the Climate Action Plan 2023, which was published in December.
Addressing scrutiny on how the government intends to meet stringent decarbonisation targets in the near future, the minister pointed to efforts to ramp up renewable energy, including solar.
He said that solar panels should be fitted on every school and “thousands, if not tens of thousands, of farms” by 2025.
“I see no reason why we should not be able to deliver that in the next three years as some of the examples of the projects that we need to do,” the minister said.
The Climate Action Plan 2023 outlines that 80% of Ireland’s electricity should come from renewable sources by 2030. Up to 5GW of energy should be produced through solar power by 2025, rising to 8GW by 2030.
The government has introduced a range of supports and grants aimed at facilitating wider uptake of solar panels at a local level to help reach those targets.
Despite the grants, some households and businesses interested in installing solar panels say the upfront cost is still prohibitive. Additionally, the government’s microgeneration support scheme, which involves individuals generating renewable power receiving a payment from their energy supplier for excess energy exported to the grid, has taken months longer than promised to be fully up and running.
Ireland is one of 194 parties to ratify the 2015 Paris Agreement, a major international deal between countries to keep global temperature increases under 2 degrees Celsius and ideally less than 1.5 to temper the rising threat to human life and ecosystems caused by climate change.
Overall, the Climate Action Plan 2023 details climate measures for electricity, transport, agriculture, land-use, the marine environment and other sectors and the co-benefits of climate action such as improved air quality, public health, resilience against extreme weather events, and new jobs.
It is the first to be published since the approval of binding carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings that set clearer limits on the amount of emissions that the country and individual sectors can afford to emit in the coming years, divided into five-year cycles.
In addition to the plan itself, the government still needs to produce an Annex of Actions – a numbered list of every individual action arising from the plan, the measures to achieve it, and when it should be completed.
Minister Ryan told the committee that the Annex of Actions should be published next week subject to receiving Government approval.
With nearly two full months gone by since the plan was published, he said it has taken “slightly longer than [he] would have liked” to produce the annex.
Chargers for electric vehicles came under scrutiny at the committee meeting, with politicians raising questions about the rollout of public charging infrastructure.
Fianna Fáil TD Christopher O’Sullivan asked whether a “message” could be sent to local authorities that they must start installing chargers “at a quicker pace”.
“I think there needs to be a direction to local authorities, because at the moment, they don’t want to know about it, they don’t want to put their resources into it, even though the grant is going to be more favorable,” the TD said, also asking the minister whether he could direct local authorities to take up walking and cycling projects.
The minister responded that he “can and will”, adding that “you can’t run active travel completely centrally because local knowledge [is needed] of where those routes are, where the demand is, where the safe routes to schools need to go and so on”.
“It does have to come from both management and councillors.”
Under a strategy that received Cabinet approval last month, the government plans to help fund charging points at public locations like sports clubs, retail centres and tourism hotspots and fast 50kW+ chargers are to be made available every 60km along motorways.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
I prefer mars to snickers. The past history of either is not really that important
A combination of factors Val. 4 billion years ago Mars was a much warmer place than today, as the planet had not cooled sufficiently since its formation. The interior of the planet at that time was similar to Earth’s today, i.e. a thin crust floating on a molten interior giving rise to volcanoes such as at Olympus Mons. The interior, as on Earth, is made primarily of iron, and in such instances where the core is molten, this iron creates a magnetic field (such as can be seen on Earth). The magnetic field protects the planet from solar radiation. This radiation breaks H2O molecules down into their respective parts – Oxygen and Hydrogen. With the cooling of the planet’s interior the magnetic field breaks down allowing the solar radiation in which then breaks down the H2O. The hydrogen is too light to remain on Mars’ surface (bear in mind Mars has only1/3 the gravity of Earth) and floats to the top of the atmosphere where, now that the magnetic field is gone, solar winds are allowed to tear the hydrogen away from the planet and carry it into space and ionising other particles which are also stripped away. As the atmosphere thins the planet cools even further. Any water that remains becomes locked in the rocks, any oxygen which remains ends up bound in CO2. The process is a relatively fast one. See this article from NASA on the process.
great comment
Global warming ;)
Deadly bit of news. Little bit disappointed by the artists image though. Surely Mars then wouldn’t have looked the same as now i.e. red and dusty, if it had an ocean would it? Surely it would have looked a little bit closer to our own planet. Raises serious questions about what happened there for an entire ocean to dry up also.
That would really depend on whether or not the ocean was there long enough for life to evolve. Our planet only looks like it does because of the plant life, if you look at the deserts you get an idea of how it would’ve looked if life didn’t happen. The only difference I’d put into the artists impression is a bit of cloud cover, maybe.
The view of the sky from the surface of Mars is blue, like Earth. NASA admitted that they touch those shots “for effect”.
the sky is only blue at sunrise and sunset
How I wish the human race could solve our problems here and explore inner and outer space together. The trillions spent on war could feed and clothe us all and used to expand our understanding of our home. The universe.
It will never happen, but still.
Who cares we should be looking after our own planet
Alan, we may need a new planet. Mars may become important in the same way as the USA was. Who says we must only live on one planet?
The fact that there was once water on Mars is old news. The mainstream news is only catching on now?
Read the first 2 lines of the article please.
It says that in the article, this is not news of water on the planet, it is news of the remnants of a particular ocean.
Ah crap, apologies folks. I read the article but the first couple of lines must have indeed escaped my attention! Whoops.
have your say