Sunday, January 06, 2019

Ireland Carbon reduction by 2030

How are we going to meet Ireland's carbon reduction aims in the next eleven years?

How much do we need to reduce Carbon by?

We have committed to 'reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40 per cent (compared to 1990 levels)'. Which is 60% of 56 million tonnes our carbon output by 40%. Which is 33.6 million tonnes of around 42.5% of our current carbon usage.

How would we do this?

On a personal level not an industrial one what would I have to do to reduce my carbon output by 40%? Please correct me if I am wrong here but roughly it seems to be

1. Get rid of my car. (as seen in Show Table: 2.5) 20% of our carbon output is Transport. Electric cars do not seem to be vastly more efficient than petrol ones.

2. Become Vegan. This seems to reduce food Carbon by about 40% .

3. Insulate the house and install energy efficient appliances. This seems to make less impact than cars and meat.

4. Sign up to airtricity. This one is easy enough.

How would this happen?

This all seems asking a lot. On transport Public transport subsidies would have to increase massively immediately. Even then 30% of Irish people live in the countryside which is really hard to do without a car.

It could be that rewilding the countryside means that we do not need to reduce carbon outputs by as much. But that would be a huge undertaking by itself.

Why is all this not being talked about? If I am totally wrong here please explain in the comments how to reduce by 40% in an easier way. If it is that we have to go vegan, live in cities and massively boost public transport starting immediately that seems to be a massive task.

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