23. Deputy Ciarán Ahern asked the Minister for Climate, Energy and the Environment his response to a recent United Nations Environment Programme report which concluded that global warming is certain to overshoot the 1.5C threshold; if he is satisfied that Ireland has to date made its fair contribution towards limiting global warming; if this Government will now significantly scale up its climate action measures to play our part in limiting the overshoot of the threshold and reach the legally binding targets that we have committed to; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [65978/26]

This Government is committed to delivering on Ireland’s responsibility to address the climate crisis and work remains ongoing across Government to implement climate mitigation measures every day. We have a robust climate delivery framework and detailed plans in place across all sectors.

The UNEP Limiting Overshoot report, published on 2nd September this year, sets out the stark picture the global community is faced with in our collective efforts to combat climate change.

Ireland is making progress and the EPA's latest provisional greenhouse gas emissions inventory, published in July, shows that Ireland has recorded overall emission reductions for a fourth consecutive year and all main sectors saw reductions in 2025. Emissions from energy industries decreased for the fourth consecutive year, to an all-time low as investment in renewables continues to reduce emissions, and CO2 per household is now at its lowest ever level.

Ireland now has the lowest level of GHG emissions in 36 years which is notable given a concurrent population increase of approximately 1.5 million people, more than one million new homes and over one million extra vehicles on our roads. Given the strong economic growth over this period, we can now see a clear decoupling of growth from emissions which is a key milestone in Ireland's transition to climate neutrality.

Significantly, the EPA's report shows that the first carbon budget has now been achieved on the back of these record emissions reductions.

Going forward, my priority is driving implementation, particularly of high impact measures with multiple societal and economic benefits. This will be reflected in the next update to the Climate Action Plan, which is currently being developed across Government and will be published this year.