Government Publish Details Of New Climate Action Plan

The Government has published the new Climate Action Plan setting out how emissions are to be more than halved by 2030.

The plan sets out a range of targets for sectors of the economy including electricity, transport, agriculture, industry, buildings and forestry.

They're set in ranges - for example 22-30 per cent for agriculture, the lowest range of cuts, or 62 to 81 per cent for the energy sector.

If every Department only hits the bottom end of those ranges, the 2030 targets won't be met.

Over the next few months that will be refined into a more firm target after the budgets have been taken through the Oireachtas.

The targets include having 80 per cent of Ireland's energy be renewable by the end of the decade, with 5 gigawatts of offshore wind.

Measures in the plan include half a million home retrofits, 680 thousand renewable heat upgrades for homes and changes to rules around building new homes which would mean fossil fuels are essentiallyy banned.

There's targets for 500,000 daily additional public transport or active travel journeys also included.