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Progress towards Ireland's first carbon budget (2021-2025).
New analysis from MaREI at University College Cork shows that Ireland is surprisingly currently on track to meet our first statutory carbon budget covering the period 2021-2025. Full article available here Progress towards Ireland's first carbon budget (2021-2025).
The Oireachtas (Irish Parliament) approved carbon budgets for Ireland in April 2022. These establish in five yearly blocks of time an upper limit for the total amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that Ireland can emit. The first two carbon budgets, covering the periods 2021 – 2025 and 2026 – 2030 seek to ensure that Ireland meets the 51% GHG emissions reduction target by 2030 as legislated for in the Climate Action And Low Carbon Development Act 2021.
Exploring the EPA greenhouse gas emissions data for the period to date (i.e. 2021-2023) shows that Ireland is on track to meet the overall budget and also well on target relating to some of the individual sectoral emissions ceilings (in particular agriculture and the residential sector).
There are significant challenges to stay the course and this will require an 8.4% average annual GHG emissions reduction in 2024 and 2025. Achieving this will require political courage, institutional support and societal mobilisation.
This analysis informs an article written by Daniel Murray that is available here Business Post.