The Climate Change Advisory Council are meeting today to sign off on a series of carbon budgets in the hopes of reducing Ireland’s greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon budgets refer to how much carbon dioxide countries can release into the atmosphere before the world is guaranteed to warm at least 1.5 degrees.
The budgets are set to cover between 2021 and 2025 and 2026 to 2030.
The council are expected to sign off on an overall limit of emissions before the decision is brought before the government.
The Oireachtas will then be given a period of four months to approve the proposed budgets.
The budgets will set out the emission targets for each sector and how these targets will be achieved.
Legislation passed earlier in the year states that emissions must be reduced by 51 per cent by 2030, and Ireland must be carbon natural by 2050.
However, Ireland failed to abide by its European Union commitment to reduce emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 as emissions were reduced by just 7 per cent.
The government is also expected to consider a contingency plan for if Ireland experiences energy shortages this winter, with an effective hierarchy expected to be put in place that would prioritise private homes and health care settings.
A source told The Irish Times: “pretty much everything would have to go wrong” for a situation to materialise where homes were faced with power cuts. Under the hierarchy, large energy users would be the first to be asked to switch to their generators and go off the national grid. After that, “non-critical” users would be next to come off the grid, and this would include examples such as cement factories.
"At the very back of the queue, and it will never come to this, are hospitals, and then private homes are close in beside them.”
Addressing the Dail last week Minister for Environment and Climate Eamon Ryan said the new plans would be 'transformative' as they will bring a 50 per cent reduction in emissions.
He said: “[The carbon budget] requires us to completely change our energy system, transport system, land use and agricultural system and industrial systems for the better. We can and will do this.
“A huge amount of work has been done. We will have it in time to go to Cop26 with a draft climate action plan from Ireland to give it a sense of where we are going to proceed.
“However, the real challenge now will be implementing it at the speed and scale that are necessary to meet the correct calls of concern from the climate strikers.”
