Government approves Climate Action Plan 2024 for public consultation
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From: Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications
- Published on: 20 December 2023
- Last updated on: 18 March 2024
A public consultation on Climate Action Plan 2024, which is subject to Strategic Environmental Assessment and Appropriate Assessment, will launch early in the New Year.
The government has today approved Climate Action Plan 2024, subject to public consultation and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), which will take place in early 2024.
Climate Action Plan 2024 is the second statutory update to the plan since the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 was signed into law, committing Ireland to 2030 and 2050 targets for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. It builds on Climate Action Plan 2023 and outlines how Ireland will accelerate the action required to respond to the climate crisis, putting climate solutions at the centre of Ireland’s social and economic development.
Climate Action Plan 2024 sets out that Ireland is making progress across many key sectors, but that measures must continue to be implemented at greater speed and scale to reduce emissions further while ensuring that quality of life is improved.
The most recent Environment Protection Agency (EPA) inventory figures show that Ireland's emissions fell by just under 2% between 2021 and 2022 — with reductions across the agriculture, industry, energy and residential sectors — at a time when the economy and population were increasing. It is anticipated that these will fall further this year with continued changes.
However, with more extreme and frequent climate impacts, Climate Action Plan 2024 outlines that there can be no room for complacency, and that there is still a significant challenge ahead of us if we are to transition to a greener, cleaner future that improves people’s quality of life.
The Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and Transport, Eamon Ryan, said:
"The historic agreement reached last week at COP28 in Dubai shows that the world can unite to address the source of climate breakdown and agree to take climate action. It sets out a path for us all to achieve the double ambition we need: to reduce emissions and ensure climate justice.
"Ireland is good at this and will continue to be good at this. While we must keep the pressure up, one thing I realised at COP28 was that in comparison to many other countries, we have successfully mobilised climate action in this government. We are also at an advantage because climate is not a divisive issue for the most part. The EPA’s Climate Change in the Irish Mind research tells us that 96% of Irish people acknowledge climate change. There are of course countries that started their climate journey before us, and we are playing catch-up, but overall, we are seeing that the ship is turning in our buildings, electricity, farming, industry and public transport, for example.
"Last year, we saw a drop in emissions of 1.9%, against a backdrop of a booming economy and increasing population. It’s nowhere near enough but it is a start, and as more programmes come on stream, I believe we can begin to decrease our emissions exponentially.
"Let’s take a look at some of the green shoots of change that have happened this year. We expect that we will see a drop of almost 17% in emissions from electricity. Our renewables are up by 5% and rooftop solar has made a massive jump, with approximately 400 MW now installed on our homes and businesses. A few years ago, this would have been considered a pipe-dream.
"Our buildings’ emissions target is on track, showing an 8% decrease this year, driven largely by greater energy efficiencies, a progressive new homes policy which is effectively eliminating fossil fuels from our new stock, and the retrofitting success. This year, we will support over 46,000 homes to be warmer and cheaper to run, smashing our target of 37,000 for the year.
"Agriculture too is embracing change. Fertiliser use is down over two years, organic farming has more than doubled since 2021 and 46,000 farmers signed up in a matter of months to the ACRES scheme."
He acknowledged that transport, where emissions are on track to rise in 2023, is the hardest sector to change. However, planning reform legislation is expected to be finalised in quarter 1 of 2024, and major transport projects like the DART+ South West and critical core bus corridors are expected to accelerate, helping to encourage greater modal shift. In addition, the Department of Transport is expected to publish its Demand Management Strategy in early 2024, which will outline a plan to end congestion and reallocate road space for public and active travel in early 2024.
Climate Action Plan 2024 includes a proposed inter-departmental delivery and governance framework to further assess and consider potential options for allocating the current unallocated emissions savings for the second Carbon Budget period (2026-2030). The proposed approach is focused on emerging technologies where there is now greater evidence of technical and commercial readiness, and on the deployment of carbon removal technologies for hard to treat sectors (for example: cement or aluminium smelting, which requires very high temperatures).
Minister Ryan concluded:
"We said in the Programme for Government that we would have to learn by doing and that further advancements in technology would be required to reach our targets for unallocated savings and land use. The science is still evolving at a rapid pace so we have decided to adopt the EU approach, which focuses on making incremental improvements to the baseline rather than being locked into sectoral carbon budgets."
Progress in action
The government has carried out a series of measures in 2023 that are delivering results across:
Transport
- 65 new bus routes were launched across rural Ireland in 2023, adding 2.3 million annual kilometres to the public transport network. Over the past 2 years, there has been a new or enhanced bus route every week
- electric vehicle adoption is surging, with a total of over 109,000 EVs now on Irish roads. We are on track to meet the 2025 target of 195,000 EVs
- the government has cut public transport fares for adults by 20% and halved them for young adults up to the age of 26. It has also delivered over 600km of new walking and cycling every week
Energy
- emissions from electricity fell by approximately 16.7% in the first six months of 2023
- the first offshore wind auction was completed earlier this year, which will see four projects produce enough clean indigenous electricity to power more than 2.5 million homes
- Ireland now has 4.7GW of onshore wind and 600MW of solar connected to the grid, with a record year of renewables connections in 2022
- the National Biomethane Strategy, which will support sustainable development of Ireland’s anaerobic digestion and biomethane industry, is in the final stages of development and will be submitted to Government for approval shortly
Public sector
- emissions from public services decreased by 1.9% in 2022 compared to 2021, due to a decrease in natural gas and oil use in the public services sector
- climate action leadership training is being rolled out to all senior managers in the Civil Service and training will be made available to all staff in 2024
Buildings
- over 43,000 home energy upgrades were supported by the SEAI by the end of November— up 85% on the same period in 2022. This is expected to top 46,000 by year end with a robust pipeline for 2024. Almost 59,000 applications for grant support were received by the SEAI by the end of November this year — up 25% on the same period last year
- planning permission has been scrapped for the majority of domestic solar panels, VAT has been abolished on their purchase and households can now sell any excess electricity they generate back to the national grid. ESB Networks reports that there are now over 75,000 registered microgenerators across Ireland
Public consultation
A public consultation will be launched in early 2024, seeking the views of the general public and interested stakeholders on both Climate Action Plan 2024 and the associated SEA report. Following the consultation, Climate Action Plan 2024 will be reviewed in light of feedback received and the plan will be updated as required.
You can view Climate Action Plan 2024 and its annex of actions on the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications website.
Notes
Climate Action Plan 2024 is the third annual update to Ireland’s Climate Action Plan 2019. This plan is the second to be prepared under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 and following the introduction of economy-wide Carbon Budgets and Sectoral Emissions Ceilings. The implementation of the Climate Action Plan will create jobs, new economic opportunities and protect people and the planet. Subscribe to the Government of Ireland's Climate Action newsletter.
Climate Action Plan 2024 reflects the latest Climate Change Advisory Council review and the latest EPA reports. The chapters of the Climate Action Plan that relate to sectors with a Sectoral Emissions Ceiling include a stocktake of abatement progress to date and an indication of what will need to be achieved in each sector to meet the targets.
Land use sector
The reported emissions in the land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) sector remain in flux as our understanding of emissions and activity for this sector advances. The 2018 baseline (as reported in the EPA’s 2021 National Inventory Report) increased by 31% in the 2023 report. Multiple inventory refinements are scheduled for the coming decade, resulting in further fluctuations to the baseline, in parallel with current and projected emissions trends for the sector out to 2030 and beyond. Climate Action Plan 2024 contains a proposal to settle the matter of the management of LULUCF emissions.
EPA projections and gap to target
The EPA’s latest GHG Emissions Projections report for the period 2022-2040 (published in June 2023) indicates that Ireland’s pathway to achieving its emissions reduction targets will be extremely challenging. Under the EPA’s ‘With Existing Measures’ (WEM) scenario, Ireland’s total emissions are expected to decrease by only 11% by 2030. Under their ‘With Additional Measures’ (WAM) scenario, which assumes full implementation of key measures set out in Climate Action Plan 2023, a decrease of 29% is expected.
However, even under the WAM scenario, the EPA excludes several Climate Action Plan 2023 policies and measures from its analysis as the Agency could not account for the potential impact at that point in time.
The EPA does acknowledge that if all of the unmodelled policies and measures in Climate Action Plan 2023, and the as yet unallocated emissions savings are included, the reduction in emissions could equate to 42% by 2030, a figure significantly closer to the overarching target of 51%.
The EPA’s latest emissions reports and projections continue to be core inputs to inform the preparation of the annual update to the plan.
Community climate action
Under Strand 1/a of the Community Climate Action Programme, €24 million is being provided from the Climate Action Fund to local authorities to support communities — large and small, rural and urban — to build low carbon communities in a considered and structured way. A further €3 million is being provided by the Shared Island Fund to support similar types of projects on a cross-border or whole-island basis. The Minister will be launching the application phase of this programme in January.