Image: © Snap Happy/Stock.adobe.com
Despite Ireland achieving a ‘personal best’ in reducing emissions last year, transport emissions grew and the SEAI warns that certain trends could reverse our climate progress.
Ireland hit a new record in reducing its energy-related emissions last year, but more needs to be done to meet the country’s climate commitments.
That’s according to a new report by the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), which found that Ireland’s energy emissions dropped by just under 8pc in 2023. The improvement was notable in the electricity sector, which the SEAI attributes to an increase in imported electricity supply across Ireland’s interconnectors with the UK and increased renewable energy generation from wind and solar.
The SEAI said this trend is continuing into 2024 and estimates electricity-related emissions will drop by 17pc for the first half of this year. However, improvements in the electricity sector were counteracted by the growth of data centres, as their demand for energy outpaced the connection of new renewable energy sources.
SEAI director of research and policy insights Margie McCarthy praised the new “personal best” for Ireland in terms of energy-related emissions but said this is just the start of a journey to “being able to celebrate success in 2030”.
“At the moment, we are falling far short of where we need to be,” McCarthy said. “Change is notably afoot. Now we need to turn ambition into action to meet our national climate obligations and avoid significant compliance costs against legally binding EU targets.”
Transport takes a dive
Ireland’s transport sector continues to fall behind its targets, with more than 90pc of transport energy coming from fossil fuels. Last year’s transport emissions grew slightly despite increased levels of fossil fuel blending with biodiesel and bioethanol.
Energy demand from the aviation industry reached a record high last year, despite the need to reduce energy demand across all forms of transport. Provisional records for 2024 suggest Ireland’s transport emissions will have a slight reduction this year, but Ireland is still moving towards a difficult period to hit its 2030 climate targets.
“With the data we have to hand, it appears that we will marginally exceed the first carbon budget for electricity [in 2025], leaving an already tight budget slightly reduced for the second period to 2030,” McCarthy said. “The situation with transport will be very challenging as we will likely exceed the first transport sectoral ceiling by some considerable amount perhaps requiring a halving of annual transport emissions through the second period.”
Scaling up renewables
The report shows that the residential use of coal, peat, oil and natural gas for heating and hot water all dropped in 2023, along with a growth in residential homes using renewable energy from heat pumps. But provisional 2024 data suggests a return to growth in gas and oil for home heating, which could see the gains made in 2023 reversed.
“The good news is that we already have the technical solutions to deliver on climate obligations, we just need to deploy them at sufficient scale and pace,” McCarthy said. “We need to focus on offshore wind, grid scale solar PV and electricity grid development. To tackle heat emissions, we need to eliminate oil and gas boilers, replacing them with electric heat pumps and building district heat networks in towns and cities.”
The call to develop Ireland’s offshore wind sector may prove challenging however, as there is currently no port in the Republic of Ireland capable of deploying offshore wind farms.
In 2022, the SEAI noted Ireland’s energy-related emissions increased back to levels seen before the Covid-19 pandemic.
Don’t miss out on the knowledge you need to succeed. Sign up for the Daily Brief, Silicon Republic’s digest of need-to-know sci-tech news.
