The Oireachtas committees advise the Houses of the Oireachtas on a range of specific areas. Committee members include TDs, Senators or both. Committees receive submissions and presentations from members of the public, interest groups and Government Departments. In the first such meeting of 2022, the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment and Climate Action met on 11th January to hear MaREI Director/Environmental Research Institute Co-Director Prof Brian Ó Gallachóir give an opening statement introducing the process underpinning the carbon budgets proposed by the Climate Change Advisory Council’s Carbon Budgets Committee.

The most significant factor underpinning the proposed carbon budgets is the obligation under the Climate Act to achieve a 51% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 relative to 2018 levels. In addition, the Committee also considered the implications for energy use and supply, for agriculture and land-use, alignment with EU policy and with the Paris Agreement, and the economic and societal implications of the carbon budgets.

You can read the full opening statement, background paper and see the recording of the session here https://bit.ly/3HSAHcC 

Brian Ó Gallachóir Statement to the Joint Committee on Environment and Climate Action on Carbon Budgets https://www.marei.ie/brian-o-gallachoir-statement-to-the-joint-committee-on-environment-and-climate-action/