Climate Action Plan main points: What does it mean for you?

The Government has unveiled its new €125bn climate action plan. Here are the main points across five key areas.

Electricity

An increase in renewable electricity, wind and solar, up to 80 per cent by 2030. This will entail investment of tens of billions of euro.

To deal with the challenge to targets posed by data centres, the government will review its strategy on data centres to “ensure that growth of such users can only happen in alignment with our sectoral emissions ceilings and renewable energy targets.”

A new offshore renewable energy plan will be completed to quantify the offshore renewable energy potential in Ireland’s maritime area.

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The development of carbon capture and storage by 2030 - which takes carbon out of the atmosphere - could remove further emissions from the system. The Government says it will develop a policy framework and roadmap for its use.

A support scheme for micro-generation allowing homeowners to generate their own electricity and sell what they don’t use back to the national grid.

A separate small scale generator scheme for farmers, business and communities to generate electricity and sell to the grid.

Overall plan is to reduce emissions from electricity by 62 - 81 per cent from 2018 levels.

The plan also commits to delivering three new transmission grid connections or interconnectors to Northern Ireland, Great Britain, and the EU.

It also commits to completing the phase-out of coal and peat-fired electricity generation.

Homes

A cornerstone of the plan will involve finding ways to meet the target of retrofitting 500,000 homes and will see citizens offered a new low cost loan scheme to retrofit their homes with new tax incentives also on the cards.

The plan commits to:

A new National Retrofit Plan which will involve a new Residential Retrofit Low-cost Loan Scheme .

Blending low-cost loans with SEAI grants to make retrofit affordable.

Opening three more training centres for retrofit upskilling.

Introducing a programme to decarbonise the heating and cooling sectors by 2050.

Phasing out use of fossil fuels for space and water heating in all new buildings.

Promoting the use of electric heat pump or other low carbon technology in new and existing residential and commercial buildings.

Completing 500,000 residential retrofits to achieve a B2 BER/cost optimal equivalent or carbon equivalent.

Installing 600,000 heat pumps in residential buildings (of which 400,000 to be installed in existing buildings).

Transport

Transport accounts for approximately 20 per cent of Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions. The transport sector has been the fastest growing source of GHG emissions, showing a 100 per cent increase between 1990 and 2020. The plan commits to:

Enabling 500,000 daily sustainable travel journeys by 2030 through major public transport projects such as BusConnects and Connecting Ireland.

The expansion of rail services and cycling and walking infrastructure.

Increasing the use of biofuels in transport.

Expanding electrification of bus and rail fleets with 1,500 electric buses by 2030.

Increasing the number of EVs to circa 1 million by 2030.

Updating the public transport and public fleets to low emission alternatives.

The aim here is for a 42-50 per cent reduction in emissions.

Agriculture

Agriculture represents the largest source of emissions, or some 37.1 per cent of total national emissions in 2020.

The Government is planning to:

Significantly reduce chemical nitrogen fertiliser use to 325,000 tonnes per annum.

Improve animal breeding and feeding.

Increase organically farmed land almost five-fold to 350,000 hectares.

“Manage” emissions from the dairy herd and transform the model of beef production.

Overall the aim is reduce emissions by between 22 per cent and 30 per cent by 2030.

In terms of land use the plan is to:

Increase afforestation with a new forestry programme to launch in 2023.

Enterprise

The report warns that companies and sectors that fail to decarbonise will become increasingly uncompetitive. The biggest share of enterprise emissions comes from a small number of large companies in the manufacturing sector, mostly in alumina, food processing, beverages and cement.

The plan commits to launching an online Climate Toolkit 4 Business which will include a simple carbon calculator and will generate a tailored company climate action plan for each business.

The IDA will seek to attract businesses to invest in decarbonisation technologies.

The plan commits to facilitating the use of alternative fuels and non-recyclable wastes in cement kilns.

It also says the Government will develop corporate climate action plans with key clients for their Irish sites.

The aim here is to reduce emissions by between 29 per cent and 41 per cent.