New Government Must Act on Transport Emissions – Starting With EV Action
Whatever the outcome of the General Election on 29th November, the incoming government must get serious about transport emissions if the Irish taxpayer is to avoid €8bn in annual fines for the nation’s continued failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Transport is second only to agriculture as the biggest source of emissions in Ireland, and while other sectors have begun to make reductions, transport emissions actually rose last year.
We are now dangerously off course with our climate commitments, and urgent action is needed if we are to meet our 2030 targets. Nowhere is this clearer than in the Government’s electric vehicle targets – we are an international outlier, as EV sales stall here despite substantial growth around the world.
Much has been made of the ‘1 million EVs by 2030’ goal – itself something of a misnomer, given that it includes a vast number of plug-in hybrids, which are 100% reliant on fossil fuels to operate and therefore worsen the Climate Emergency. Greenwashing at its finest.
Even then, this target would still only constitute 30% of Ireland’s private car fleet, and the outgoing Government did nothing to protect the planned abolition of internal combustion engine sales in 2030, which has now slipped back to 2035 – and may be eroded further still by the same lobbying groups.
The Irish Government cut EV grants significantly in July 2023. While many dealers pre-registered EV imports in July to ensure cars still benefitted from grants - leading to record sales - the decline in sales was immediate and has never recovered. Sales in 2024 are down 25.4% compared to the previous year, and have dipped below 2022 levels on multiple occasions (Credit: IrishEVs)
All this means that, as of late November 2024, 86% of all new vehicles sold in Ireland are wholly reliant on fossil fuels – and will be for their lifetime. Which is around 13 years or so, based on current averages, locking in emissions until the late 2030s.
The goals set out in the Climate Action Roadmap 2023 are in serious jeopardy after the current Government cut EV grants last year. The effect of which was immediate, with battery electric vehicle (BEV) sales declining as soon as the cuts took affect – from which they have yet to recover.
According to the Climate Action Roadmap 2023, we supposed to have more than 100,000 BEVs on the roads by the end of this year if we are to keep to our legally binding targets. Yet, according to data from the Central Statistics Office, only around 73,000 BEVs are currently on Irish roads.
With BEV sales falling 25.4% this year – primarily due to the cuts in Government grants, but also aided by the growing disinformation about electric cars – we’d need more than 27,000 new fully electric cars to be sold in November and December to remain on track.
That’s almost double the number of BEVs sold in 2024 so far.
This was a slow car crash that could be seen a mile off. The Government didn’t want to heed the warnings when they cut the grants, they have done nothing to kick-start an affordable second-hand EV market here in Ireland, and have repeatedly put their faith in market forces to solve the issue.
That has not worked.
The incoming Government must start to get serious about transport emissions.
Failure to do so will only add to the 1,400 premature deaths from air pollution in Ireland each year, and lock in the likelihood that we will have to pay in excess of €8bn in fines each year that we’re not compliant with our own legally-binding emissions targets from 2030 onwards.
Reinstating grants with a focus on smaller, more affordable EVs would be a sensible place to start, helping ordinary people overcome the hurdle of upfront costs and avail of the lower running costs to alleviate energy poverty.
The Irish Government is off course when it comes to both its EV adoption and transport emission targets. Credit: Irish Environmental Protection Agency
Meanwhile, removing – or subsidising – import taxes on affordable second-hand BEVs from the UK would kick-start the affordable second-hand market here. It doesn’t exist at present, and it will take years for the trickle-down economics approach to create one, so the Government must step in if it is serious about meeting its climate and emissions targets.
With so many lives and such large fines looming on the near horizon, we’re better to spend the money now and collectively reap the benefits than continuing to march half-asleep towards certain failure – as we’re currently doing.
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