Carbon Budget Proposal 2031-2040

The Climate Change Advisory Council has published its proposal for this second programme of carbon budgets which is outlined in its Carbon Budget Proposal Report with an overview provided in the Carbon Budget Proposal 2024 - Summary for All document. The proposal was submitted to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications in December 2024 with the following: Letter to Minister re Carbon Budget Proposal

In preparing this carbon budget proposal, the Council has reflected on the National Climate Objective and been guided by the objectives of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Paris Agreement’s long-term temperature goal to limit global warming to well below 2°C and pursue efforts to limit warming to 1.5˚C.

Figure 1 below shows the proposals for CB3 (2031–2035) and a provisional CB4 (2036–2040) in the context of the adopted CB1(2021–2025) and CB2 (2026–2030). These carbon budget proposals exclude emissions from international aviation and shipping and (as mandated under S.I. 531 of 2021) are calculated based on global warming potential values evaluated over 100 years (GWP100) published in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report in line with UNFCCC and EU reporting requirements.

Figure 1: Carbon budgets 2021–2040. The Council’s proposal for CB3 (2031–2035) of 160 Mt CO₂ eq and a provisional CB4 (2036–2040) of 120 Mt CO₂ eq using GWP₁₀₀ in the context of the agreed CB1 (2021–2025) and CB2 (2026–2030) and the EPA provisional estimates of total emissions in the years 2021–2023.

The Council’s carbon budget proposal does not address the potential of carbon budget debt rollover between carbon budget periods. The 2021 Amended Act mandates that exceedance of carbon budgets is carried over at the point of concluding the finalisation of emissions inventories for each carbon budget period. Furthermore, it should be noted that sectoral emissions ceilings are a matter for Government decision and the carbon budgets proposed here do not pre-empt the Minister’s and Government’s decision on how sectoral emissions ceilings are allocated. This decision will set out the maximum amount of greenhouse gas emissions that are permitted in different sectors of the economy during carbon budget periods.

The Secretariat has prepared two Microsoft Excel files which provide an opportunity to explore the inputs and outputs of the climate neutrality analysis. These files can be downloaded here. 

Carbon Budget Emissions Scenario Viewer

Temperature Analysis Viewer - For further detail on this temperature analysis, please see Ireland's Warming Impact Analysis Report.

Carbon Budgets Working Group

A Carbon Budgets Working Group was established to assist and advise the Council in the development of a methodology and evidence base for carbon budget proposals, in particular providing modelling and analytical support for the development of carbon budget proposals. Further information on the Carbon Budgets Working Group is available at Carbon Budgets Working Group 2023-2024.

There was one workshop and 18 meetings of the Carbon Budgets Working Group between the 9th of March 2023 and the 18th of September 2024. The meetings documents, including agendas, minutes, presentations and other technical documents, are available at Carbon Budgets Working Group Meeting Documents.