Government approves Annex of Actions to Climate Action Plan 2023
- Published on: 7 March 2023
- Last updated on: 9 March 2023
The government has approved the Annex of Actions to the Climate Action Plan 2023, outlining the detailed steps Ireland is taking to respond to the climate crisis. The updated Climate Action Plan was approved by Government and published on 21 December 2022 and takes account of the carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings agreed last year. The Annex of Actions provides more detail on the actions required to achieve the targets set out in the Plan. It will be used to drive continued delivery of climate action across all government departments and bodies.
Climate Action Plan 2023 sets outs how Ireland is putting climate solutions at the centre of our social and economic development. At its heart, the Plan is about realising the opportunities that a clean, sustainable environment, economy and society will offer, in a way that is fair for everyone. Every sector, every community, every person has a role to play. The Plan also recognises that there are challenges in changing systems, practices and behaviours across all of the key economic sectors: energy, industry, built environment, transport, agriculture and land-use. However, it is also based on the reality that Ireland must meet legal obligations to reduce our emissions by 51% by 2030 and reach net zero by no later than 2050.
The plan details actions across a number of areas, including six vital, high-impact sectors:
- powering renewables
- building better
- transforming how we travel
- making family farms more sustainable
- greening business and enterprise
- changing our land use
Commenting on today’s development, Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications, Eamon Ryan, said:
"Our challenge as a country, as a society, is to protect the stability of our climate system for future generations and to avoid the worst impacts of climate change. This is the critical decade. We must act now.
"The Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021 is seen globally as the most ambitious legislation of its kind. It, together with the annual Climate Action Plans and Annex of Actions, will hold the government to account and drive the change we need to reach our targets.
"Achieving net-zero emissions by the middle of the century and keeping the global average temperature below 1.5°C will not be easy. It will require courage and commitment. But this transformation also presents enormous opportunities for Ireland to transform and to thrive in a low-carbon future. Climate Action Plan 2023 and the detail of the Annex of Actions is about making Ireland a better place, within a more secure and resilient Europe."
Climate Action Plan 2023 builds on previous climate action plans and is the framework through which the government intends to meet the legally-binding, economy-wide carbon budgets and sectoral ceilings agreed in July 2022, and the emissions reductions targets set out in the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Acts. These targets are key pillars of the Programme for Government.
The Annex of Actions is available on the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications website.
ENDS
Notes to the Editor
Climate Action Plan 2023
The Climate Action Plan 2023, launched in December 2022, is the second annual update of Climate Action Plan 2019 and the first plan to be prepared under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development (Amendment) Act 2021. It also follows on from the introduction, in 2022, of economy-wide carbon budgets and sectoral emissions ceilings.
Key measures in the plan include:
- enough renewable electricity to power every home and business in the country by 2030
- 70% of people in rural Ireland to have buses that go three times a day to the nearest town
- 500,000 homes retrofitted to BER B2 to make them warmer and easier to heat
- 1 in 3 private cars on our roads to be electric by 2030
- walking, cycling and public transport to account for 50% of all daily trips
- changes to how we fertilize our land, reducing chemical nitrogen use to 300,000 by 2030
- the development of a new, comprehensive, national climate adaptation framework to ensure that Ireland is resilient to the impacts of climate change