Minister Darragh O’Brien on COP31

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The Hard Shoulder, with Ciara Kelly and Shane Colman, on Newstalk, with Ciara.

Shane Coleman (0:08)

Now we are joined by the Minister for Transport, Climate, Energy and the Environment, Darragh O'Brien. Minister, thanks indeed for talking to us. You will be playing a key role in the EU negotiations at COP, even 31

How embarrassing is it that the Climate Change Performance Index today shows Ireland slipping down the rankings for the second year in a row? And I think we're one of just four EU countries not to get a medium rating. We have been given a low rating compared to where we were two years ago.

Darragh O'Brien (0:46)

No, well, look, Shane, we're making significant progress.

I've been clear on your show and publicly and in the doll that the targets set to 2030, that we won't meet them, but we're going to be, we're doing everything we can to be very close to them. I think the important thing is that in a country now in Ireland that has 1.5 million more people than we had in 1990, one million more homes in 1990, and an economy that still grows, that we're seeing emissions to continue to reduce and actually their projections to the end of the decade on emissions reductions are actually improving. The EPA published Independence of Government earlier this year, those projections, which show that, look, that we could be up to 25% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. So it does show that we have a lot more work to do though. And I think one of the areas that we really are unlocking at pace is the area of energy and the acceleration of renewables. Also on transport, you'll see major take up on EV, electrification of our public transport fleet. Projects like Metrolink will absolutely help on that. And then also the home retrofitting in areas where we actually this week we had a really significant milestone of over 300,000 home retrofits done in the country, which is accelerating at a pace that we haven't seen before. So there is a way to bridge the gap. I think the role that we have, sorry, go ahead.

Shane Coleman (2:06)

Well, I was just going to put it here that the Climate Change Performance Index suggests we're not making progress. And then in fact, the authors say progress on climate action is nowhere near sufficient for ensuring compliance with our commitments, national and EU commitments. It says, yeah, we've got legally binding targets and carbon budgets, but they're only superficially strong.

It talks about how we are going to wrong direction in terms of rising fossil fuel subsidies, investing in LNG terminals.

Darragh O'Brien (2:32)

I wouldn't agree.

Shane Coleman (2:34)

I wouldn't agree at all.

It says our chances of 20% renewables getting to 43% by 2030 is unrealistic. And very finally, it talks about our failure to publish the 2026 update to the climate action plan. I mean, it is a bit ludicrous that we don't have the 2026 climate action plan and we won't have it until December.

Darragh O'Brien (2:58)

Well, okay, just to say the climate action plan for 26 and 27, a plan which I said I was going to reform and make it more understandable and focus on areas of highest impact and was agreed by Cabinet yesterday.

That will be published in the next few weeks. And that is a plan that I intend to base our climate action on between now and 2030 The problem has been in relation to climate action plans that they have been good in themselves, but they haven't been tracked properly and they continue to add different actions to it across sectors that add an incredible administrative burden, and also don't provide clarity on to what are the things that we really need to do to bridge the gap. I wouldn't agree with all of the pronouncements from that report either. I think if you look at energy, yes, we're still too dependent on fossil. We are an island nation. Europe is too dependent on fossil fuel. But we've doubled our onshore wind capacity in 10 years. We've gone from 2 megawatts, only 2 megawatts of solar in our system, to over 3 gigawatts of solar this year.

And we have a really good pipeline going forward. We're actually on electricity generation. For most of the last 6 months, about 50% of our electricity has been generated by renewables. I think what the report points to though, fairly, is, and I've said this publicly, so I don't need the authors of the report to say it, is that there is a gap between what was committed to be done under the Climate Act to where we're going to be at 2030 But there is a pathway to bridge that gap. And if I look, for argument's sake, the EPA report, I would trust without question, is that if we look at the progress that's been made on transportation, for argument's sake, by the take-up of EVs, by electrification of, are accelerating the electrification of our public transport fleet, things like that, we're actually seeing emissions reduce. We're seeing emissions reduce in agriculture, significantly last year.