EPA - Ireland's Environment, An Integrated Assessment - 2020

Ireland’s Environment – An Integrated Assessment 2020 Transport is the fastest growing sector in terms of GHG emissions and will require a multi-faceted response in terms of mitigation solutions. Electric vehicles currently occupy a central position in terms of a policy response in Ireland, with the Climate Action Plan envisaging at least 936,000 electric vehicles, both passenger and commercial, on the road by 2030 and additional charging infrastructure to cater for planned growth. This is an ambitious and challenging target, which will require ongoing support if consumers are to make the switch. Expansion of the infrastructure for electric vehicles to keep pace with the projected increase in electric vehicles in the car fleet will be imperative to underpin this transition. Other responses required by the transport sector include developing a strategy for freight transport in Ireland, which is an important component of the transport emissions profile. In addition, it is critically important for the public sector to show leadership and decarbonise all public transport across bus and rail networks to the lowest carbon alternatives. While not an option for everyone, people should be encouraged and supported to walk and cycle where possible. Improving walking and cycling facilities in cities and large urban centres to encourage these modes of travel in a safe and sustainable way is an important part of the response. Improving the safety of rural roads for walking and cycling would also have multiple co-benefits for rural communities. Chapter 11 of this report examines in more detail approaches to reducing the environmental impact of transport through use of an ‘avoid-shift-improve’ hierarchy of measures, from planning changes to technological solutions. In relation to agriculture, the Climate Action Plan sets out measures to reduce cumulative emissions in the range of 16.5-18.0 Mt CO 2 eq over the period 2021-2030. Underpinning policies and measures must be prioritised to ensure full delivery of these savings, as Ireland cannot achieve its climate ambitions without the agricultural sector delivering its contribution. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine’s roadmap ‘Ag- Climatise’, which is a national climate and air roadmap to 2030 and currently under development, is critically important in this regard. In particular, the commitment to identify actions that can be adopted quickly and effectively to stabilise methane emissions at 2020 levels should be underpinned by policy measures. The Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the EPA have embarked on a programme of research to determine how carbon neutrality for this sector can be achieved. Emissions from households represented 10 per cent of Ireland’s national GHG emissions in 2018. Improving the energy efficiency of the existing housing stock and phasing out fossil fuel use will be a key priority in reducing emissions further from this sector. The Climate Action Plan reported that buildings in Ireland are 70 per cent reliant on fossil fuels, including oil-fired boilers. The plan also highlighted that over 80 per cent of homes and other buildings assessed for their Building Energy Rating have a rating of C or worse and stated that the current annual retrofit activity for existing stock is far too limited at approximately 23,000 (mainly shallow) retrofits. Many of the easier-to-achieve reductions options have already been delivered within this sector and the challenge now is to develop new funding delivery models that move beyond individual grants in a way that drives large-scale retrofitting to bring economies-of-scale benefits and to signal advanced performance requirements. In addition to the development of scenarios and pathways to reduce fossil carbon emissions to zero, equal emphasis must be placed on the development of a ‘removals’ pathway to 2050. The Paris Agreement is explicit in terms of the need for carbon removals and Parties must collectively aim to achieve a balance of emissions and removals during this century. The IPCC Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C (IPCC, 2018) outlines a range of emissions pathways that achieve the Paris Agreement temperature goal. These rely on managed removals of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through land management and through the use of technologies such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage. The scale of the required removals varies according to near- term ambition and action. 50