EPA predicts Ireland will miss its emissions targets by a wide margin
About Gas Greenhouse Ability Result Its Amid Meet Of The Reduction Picture: A To Epa Expressed Its Stock Has Targets Change, Extreme Abel/alamy Emission Weather Climate Concern Events As Ireland's Pete
Ireland will fall drastically short of its targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has projected.
Even if all of the Government’s climate action plans and policies are fully followed through — such as the ambitious target to have almost 1m electric vehicles on the roads — the State would only achieve a reduction of 29% in its emissions by 2030, compared to 2018.
The target in Ireland’s Climate Act is a 51% reduction by then, and this predicted shortfall has not changed compared to the projections made a year ago.
“This is well short of both our European and national emission reduction targets and highlights the scale of effort required to achieve the required reductions across all sectors of our economy,” said EPA director general Laura Burke.
“The key priority must be to translate the aspiration in our policies and plans to implementation on the ground.”
The EPA said the first two carbon budgets — 2021-2030 — which aim to support the achievement of this 51% reduction goal will be breached, by a significant margin of between 17% and 27%.
Furthermore, Ireland will not meet its EU effort sharing regulation target of 42% reduction by 2030. Even if Ireland was to avail of flexibility within these EU targets, it would be over 17m tonnes of emissions above the EU target in the best-case scenario.
The EPA said faster implementation of measures is necessary to meet both national and EU targets. The pace at which planned policies and measures are implemented needs to be accelerated.
If the measures that have been implemented so far were taken into account, Ireland would have reduced its emissions by 11% by 2030. There has been no improvement in these figures since previous EPA projections were published last year.
In its projections on the impact of Government policies and plans, the EPA did not factor in those plans that don’t have a clear pathway to being delivered, or that lack detail on how they will be implemented.
If those plans were to be followed up with concrete detail, resources, and an implementation plan, Ireland could cut its emissions by 42% by 2030, according to the EPA.
Almost all sectors are projected to exceed their national emissions ceilings for 2025 and 2030, with the exception of residential buildings. The agriculture, industry, and electricity sectors are expected to be the furthest away from their sectoral ceiling by the end of the decade.
In agriculture, the EPA said emissions are projected to decrease by between 1% and 18% over the period of 2022-2030.
Savings are projected from planned polices including limits on nitrogen fertiliser usage, switching to different fertilisers and bovine feed additives, it said.
Within transport, emissions are expected to reduce by 26% in this same period if the measures set out in Government plans and policies are implemented.
Emissions from land use are projected to increase by between 23% and 99% as our forestry reaches “harvesting age” and changes from a “carbon sink to a carbon source”, according to the EPA.
It said planned policies such as increased afforestation and peatland rehabilitation are projected to reduce the extent of this emissions increase.
Over this time, the proportion of our emissions coming from energy industries is projected to fall due to a move to renewables while agriculture takes on a higher proportion of our emissions, according to the EPA.
The EPA’s programme manager Mary Frances Rochford added: “Increasing the pace of implementation will deliver the required emission reductions and create space for adoption of further policies and measures.”
CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB