Ireland's State of the Environment Report 2024

301 Chapter 11: Environment and Transport 5. Areas for focus 14 www.simi.ie/en/news/121-850-new-car-registrations-in-2023-electric-cars-up-45 Increasing demand for transport In 2023, we saw increasing numbers of vehicles on our roads, a record demand for public transport and an increase in the demand for freight. Together with our increasing population, these factors will all make reaching our emission reduction targets in the transport sector very difficult to achieve. Capacity constraints Extensive plans exist for developing new public transport infrastructure, including MetroLink, DART+ programme, Luas extension in Dublin, light rail for Cork, BusConnects for Dublin, Cork, Galway, Waterford and Limerick, and active travel infrastructure right across the country. Achieving the volume of construction required to deliver this infrastructure by the end of the decade will be a monumental task. Many large transport projects have faced planning delays, and their timeline for construction and delivery in the late 2020s to mid 2030s means that they are unlikely to deliver substantial decarbonisation of the sector over the rest of this decade. Emissions rising In 2023, we saw GHG emissions stabilise in comparison to 2022, and it appears that the benefits and savings from existing policies and measures are just keeping pace with the drivers pushing emission levels upwards. A growing private transport fleet The make-up of car fleets in Ireland is following the international trend towards larger and heavier vehicles. Almost 80% of the vehicles sold in 2023 were reliant on fossil fuels, 14 with sales of new cars up 16% on 2022. These vehicles will be in Ireland’s car fleet for at least another decade, locking in their emissions and making it increasing difficult to decarbonise this sector. Grid capacity to facilitate heavy goods vehicle charging A key concern is getting charge into depots to allow low-cost overnight HGV charging. EV trucks are commercially available and the cost is supported by a state grant – but private and public uptake is likely to remain low until a charging infrastructure is in place. Long-term ability to adapt The current trajectory in the uptake of electric cars could see us reach our Climate Action Plan targets for 2025. However, the targets for 2030 are very ambitious, and obstacles such as the supply of electric cars, the availability of charging infrastructure and a potential plateau in sales may put this target in jeopardy. Equally, there are concerns about the supply of feedstock required to produce the amount of biofuel required in our targets.