Eamon Ryan: By pulling together, we can meet the emissions challenges we face

The big task now is to put in place, at scale and at speed, the systems, supports, and infrastructure we need to implement the ambitions of the emission targets agreement

The crucial second phase of the Land Use Review will help us to completely rethink and reuse our land so that it can work as an effective carbon sink. Picture: Denis Minihane

Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in a decade. 

I’ve probably overused this quote often credited to Bill Gates but I think it’s worth repeating as we face into this first full week after the announcement of the sectoral emission ceilings agreed last Thursday evening in Government Buildings.

Over the weekend, we’ve seen continued commentary and analysis. Climate scientists say that they don’t go far enough, that the emission targets are problematic and that we will be left with too much work to do in the second half of the decade ahead to 2030. 

They’re right. The scale of the climate challenge is so huge, nothing is enough. In reality, we should have started this work two decades ago, at least. But regrettably, we didn’t.

The agricultural lobby claims that the emissions are too onerous and that the changes required will be a blow to the Irish farming and agri-food sector as it is currently run.

While I understand these concerns, I don’t agree with them. This agreement is actually about ensuring that Irish family farms can thrive, can diversify their income streams, and can be fit for purpose to meet low carbon agri-business and consumer demands.

However, while it’s important that we have healthy and robust debate, and ongoing scrutiny of Government decisions, the big task now is to put in place, at scale and at speed, the systems, supports, and infrastructure we need to implement the ambitions of this agreement. 

In reference to Mr Gates, it’s not about this week, or the next, it’s about what and how much we can do over the next decade to reach our overall economy goal of reducing our sectoral emissions by 51%.

Contrary to reported scepticism, this vital work has already started. The sectoral emission targets agreed last week build on the climate legislation we introduced last year. Our ambitious climate plan, launched last November, already provides a detailed plan for taking the decisive action we need. We will refine this now to encompass the additional commitments to solar, off-shore wind, forestry, and anaerobic digestion we made as part of the sectoral targets agreement.

Leadership teams

We have put in place high-level acceleration leadership teams, mirroring the six key sectors where we want to drive emissions down — across transport, electricity, industry, buildings, agriculture, and land use. 

These teams are already implementing the massive changes we need in each sector, week after week.

We are rapidly scaling up and improving our public transport, in our cities and across rural Ireland.

In transport we are working to switch to new fuels in our national fleet, to stop using expensive and dirty fossil fuels that, as we know, are also now being used as a weapon of the war on Ukraine. 

We are rapidly scaling up and improving our public transport, in our cities and across rural Ireland. We are going to every local authority in the country, asking them to identify a pathfinder transport project which can be implemented within the next two years. 

We will see the conclusion of public consultations on sustainable transport corridors under the BusConnects Cork programme. In the Mid-West, we launched the Limerick Shannon Metropolitan Area Transport Strategy. We will have submissions of railway orders to An Bord Pleanála in support of DART+ West and MetroLink in Dublin. We will reduce the amount of travel we have to do by building everything closer together, with 15-minute towns and 15-minute cities, more suitable to safe walking and cycling.

We are already on the path to securing energy independence, again breaking our tie to fossil fuels and reducing our emissions by a massive 75% in the electricity sector.

Commitments in this emissions agreement mean that we will double our target for solar power to 5.5GW by incentivising farmers to install solar panels on their land and buildings. We have launched our ambitious off-shore wind programme and this agreement will increase this ambition further, moving from 5GW to 7GW, with the additional 2GW earmarked for the supply of green hydrogen, the smart energy solution of the future.

Retrofitting revolution

In the built environment, we have kick-started a retrofitting revolution with grants of 80% for people to insulate their attic and walls. We are providing free retrofits to around 400 local authority and low-income homes a month at this stage, ensuring that people at greatest risk of fuel poverty have warm, healthy, and efficient homes to live in. 

There is much more to do to reach our goal of retrofitting 500,000 homes by 2030 but demand since the scheme launched is out the door.

In industry, everyone in business knows that the new circular economy is where investment and job opportunities are going to come from. Industry is already switching fast because it makes not just environmental sense, but commercial sense.

In farming, work has also already begun. My colleague Minister McConalogue wrote in this publication on Saturday that the sector has developed a roadmap aimed at transitioning the sector towards the long-term goal of reducing emissions. He also writes, as I have experienced in travelling around this country, that many farmers are already embracing actions and innovations that will help them to farm effectively and farm green. 

I was along the Dingle Peninsula a few weeks ago where I met farmers who are using technology to ensure greater energy efficiencies in everything they do, from the fields to the milking parlours. They are covering their barns, sheds, and buildings with powerful PV panels, which produce electricity immediately, even in Ireland’s often grey weather, powering their own farms, and now also selling additional energy back into the grid.

This emissions agreement will see immediate measures in Budget 2023 this September to further support farmers to have more sustainable business models, with supports for solar, organics, forestry, and anaerobic digestion for nature. Farming needs to operate within planetary boundaries and will have a crucial role in restoring healthy ecosystems and our fragile biodiversity.

We do have a huge amount of further work to do. We recognise this, with the Land Use Review being perhaps the most pressing thing we have to finalise. It will take about 18 months to do. We have finished the first phase — the evidence phase. Now we are working on the crucial second phase which will help us to completely rethink and reuse our land so that it can work as an effective carbon sink, managing our bogs, peatlands, and wetlands, determining what type of forestry we will plant, and, importantly, where we will plant it. 

This Land Use Review is also critical to helping us arrest the biodiversity destruction we have seen over the past few decades. In the 1980s, we had 200 pristine rivers. Today, we have just 50.

The agreement we reached last week isn’t just about climate change. It is about nature and biodiversity. 

And it will only work if it’s good for people, with a just transition for every community. It can’t be divisive, it can’t descend into a blame or shame game, with territorial wrangling over who owns which part of the sectoral pie. It will only work if every sector pulls together. It’s not going to be easy. But I have every confidence we can meet the challenges we have to face, and face down. Together. Week by week. Year by year.

CLIMATE & SUSTAINABILITY HUB