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LAST UPDATE | 27 May
DARRAGH O’BRIEN, THE climate minister, has insisted Ireland can halve its carbon emissions by the early 2030s – despite the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishing projections today showing the country is way off track on its goals.
Asked this afternoon whether he really believed a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions was possible by the early 2030s, O’Brien said: “Yes, I do.”
O’Brien said he was “more than confident” that the deployment of solar power, wind and bio-methane can “further accelerate” and argued that the EPA’s research did not take account of, for example, the increased uptake of electric cars in the early months of this year. He said Irish emissions have decoupled from economic growth which is “absolutely critical”.
After making a similar claim on RTÉ Radio 1′s Today programme this morning, the minister was accused by the Social Democrats’ Jennifer Whitmore of “speaking delusionally about the prospect of meeting these targets” and putting his “head in the sand”, while Labour said the minister was “spinning”.
O’Brien told The Journal: “I wasn’t engaged in any spinning at all. I think it is not easy for any society to decouple economic and population growth from emissions growth.”
He said that, in 2018, the EPA projected an emissions reduction of just 1% by 2030 with existing measures, which was up to 13% in the latest report. He said this was “not 51% and a long way away from it” but was also a far cry from the 2018 EPA projection.
“What I’m saying is, as a society, we’re going in the right direction. We need to absolutely accelerate it. I’m not trying to sugarcoat it, but there should not be despondency in this space either,” O’Brien said.
The EPA’s projections – presented at a conference in Dublin this morning – do not show Ireland achieving its 51% emissions reduction before 2035. The EPA report found that Ireland is on course to deliver only half the greenhouse gas emissions reductions required by 2030 or a 25% reduction, in a best case scenario in which additional planned measures are taken.
The EPA’s projections indicate that even in this optimistic scenario, Ireland will exceed both its second carbon budget (2026-2030) and third carbon budget (2031-2035).
Regardless of when or whether Ireland achieves its 51% target, carbon budgets – annual economy-wide emissions limits – will need to get tighter every five years out to 2050 under climate law.
O’Brien said the government is “looking afresh at the climate action plan to focus on the most impactful measures”. He said he expects recent changes to retrofitting grants, which seem to have encouraged increased uptake, to make a big difference.
However, recent research by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) has suggested the climate impact of retrofitting is significantly overestimated.
O’Brien said he “doesn’t agree with” that report, which did not take account of his new grants.
The ESRI report was based on Irish and international peer-reviewed papers which have found that the energy consumption predicted by a building’s energy rating (BER) can deviate considerably from actual observed energy consumption.
Speaking in the Dáil earlier, the Taoiseach claimed his government will do a better job on climate change than “even” the Green Party, as he came under pressure for his record on the issue.
Labour leader Ivana Bacik told the Dáil the government was “failing” on climate targets. She heavily criticised O’Brien, who had told the Today programme that people should look on the “positive side” of the missed targets.
“However he tries to spin it, and he’s good at spinning, there’s no silver lining,” Bacik said in the Dáil.
“The Green Party’s exit from government marked the death knell of Fianna Fáil’s ambition on climate,” she added.
Bacik also said it was “laughable” that the 2026 Climate Action plan has not yet been published.
O’Brien said he will be bringing the plan to cabinet in “the coming weeks” and that it will be a “slimmed down” plan that “people can actually read”.
Responding to Bacik, the Taoiseach said he “strongly” rejects Bacik’s assertion that the government is not taking climate change seriously.
He suggested that the Greens and Labour take a “fundamentalist” and “purist” approach to climate change and said “perfect is the enemy of the good”.
“We will achieve far more on climate than perhaps your approach, or even at times the Green Party approach, because we do need to bring people with us, and that consensus has broken down,” he said.
Responding to an assertion by Bacik that the government’s Critical Infrastructure Bill “fundamentally undermines the climate act”, the Taoiseach said environmental law is “being weaponised at every turn”.
“You need to face up to it, and don’t be naive,” Martin said.
With reporting by Jane Matthews.
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