Ireland won't even get halfway to its carbon emissions reduction target, says EPA
Ireland has "moved backwards" in its goal of reducing its carbon emissions by 51% by 2030 with the latest statistics showing the country is now on course for a maximum reduction of 23%.
That percentage, revealed today by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), compares to a predicted reduction of 29% made just 12 months ago.
Professor Diarmuid Torney, director of DCU's institute for climate and society, said it is "depressing" that the scale of actions Ireland will need to take to meaningfully reduce its harmful carbon emissions will be far greater than previously thought.
'We seem to have moved backwards,' Professor Torney said, describing the latest projections as representing a 'yawning gap between what we need to do and what we've committed to do'.
The report further details that Ireland is set to breach its first and second carbon budgets, which are delivered in five-year tranches, the first between 2020 and 2025 and the second between 2026 and 2030.
The latter of these is set to be breached to a massive extent – between 77 and 114 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide – described by Prof. Torney as 'really bad, we are radically missing it'.
Likewise, the new figures show that Ireland is set to miss its EU carbon reduction targets by a similarly wide margin, with a maximum reduction of 22% possible against the target of 42%.
Missing those commitments, under the EU's climate programme known as the Effort Sharing Regulation, could see Ireland hit with punitive fines amounting to as much as €26bn, according to warnings issued in tandem last March by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Climate Change Advisory Council.
The EPA said that the revised figures had been compiled using updated data from across the range of Government bodies and agencies.
'We are off track for our climate targets, and the distance to the target is increasing,' said one EPA official.
Electric vehicles
The 23% figure assumes that Ireland both implements the existing reduction measures it has committed to and also a series of additional measures - currently under discussion across Government and which are considered to have 'a realistic chance of implementation' - by 2030, according to the EPA.
For example, the 'additional measures' assumption for the number of electric vehicles on Ireland's roads is 641,000 by 2030, versus 564,000 in the 'existing measures' projection.
By contrast, the target for the number of EVs on Irish roads of such additional measures included in Ireland's 2024 climate action plan was 945,000 vehicles in the same timeframe. The most recent figure for the number of EVs on the country's roads is just 116,683 at the end of 2024, itself a slight drop on the 2023 figure.
Asked if the projected figures for EVs, which were received by the Department of Transport, were realistic, and if they had been evaluated or not, the EPA said that 'yes, the figures are interrogated'.
'But ultimately, these figures come from Government departments. This is what they see as achievable,' they said.
Government response
Environment Minister Darragh O'Brien said the latest projections from the EPA "are a clear signal that, while we've made real progress, we need to move faster to meet our 2030 climate targets".
"The Government is fully aware of the scale of the climate challenge and the importance for Ireland to be a leader in accelerating climate action.
He said the EPA projections are not "absolute forecasts" but reflect delivery to date. "The first Climate Action Plan of this Government was delivered last month," he said.
"Cross-departmental taskforces are in place. Governance arrangements have been strengthened, with the first meeting of the new Climate Action Programme Board held last week, involving senior officials from all the main sectors – including energy, transport and agriculture. Its remit is clear: to focus on accelerated delivery of the actions needed to close the emissions gap."
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