I am pleased to welcome representatives of Opportunity Green to the committee. The purpose of today's meeting is to discuss the EU emissions trading system, also known as EU ETS, particularly in the context of recent reforms to the system and in the context of the upcoming Irish Presidency of Council of the EU. Representing Opportunity Green at the committee today are Ms Aoife O'Leary, CEO, and Ms Sorcha Tunney, senior manager Ireland. It is nice to have them here today. I thank them.

The EU ETS operates on a cap in trade principle, where the overall volume of greenhouse gases and emissions is subject to a cap set at EU levels, with entities buying, selling and trading emission allowances within the system. I understand that today's discussion will focus on aviation and the role this sector can play with its overall EU ETS, which is in itself very important to developments in climate and energy policy.

Before we begin, I will read a note on privilege and deal with some housekeeping matters. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of that person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.

Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

I remind members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings. I will not permit a member to participate where they are not adhering to this constitutional requirement and, therefore, any member who attempts to participate from outside the precincts will be asked to leave the meeting. In this regard, I ask any member partaking via Microsoft Teams that, prior to making their contribution to the meeting, they confirm they are on the grounds of the Leinster House campus.

We have five minutes for the opening statement. Ms O'Leary is going to address us and deliver her keynote speech for today.

It is a privilege to be here today to address the Oireachtas Committee on European Union Affairs and hopefully answer any questions afterward. We have submitted our full written statement and I will speak to that in the opening statement.

Opportunity Green is an environmental NGO that uses law, economics and policy to address climate opportunities and ultimately bring down climate emissions. We have a deep expertise in aviation and shipping. As stated, we are focusing on the aviation ETS. It is at a key moment where Ireland is going to take on the Presidency of the EU from July, which will be a real moment for climate, energy sovereignty and innovation. They will hopefully be central to that agenda.

I am going to speak to the aviation gap in EU climate policy, the ETS as a core tool for reducing climate emissions, the revenue opportunities from expanding the ETS, which can be used for innovation, energy sovereignty, and tying it all back to Ireland's Presidency of the EU. I will start with the aviation gap in EU climate policy. I need to start by saying we are all aware of the news yesterday that the cap on Dublin Airport is going to be lifted. There is no policy in place, nationally or at EU level, to address those additional emissions. Aviation is a significant contributor to climate change. Most people would understand that regardless of their understanding of climate change. Globally, it accounts for about 2.4% of carbon dioxide emissions, but when you take into account non-carbon dioxide impacts, which are a variety of things, but most of it is the contrails - the white streaks you see in the sky - that doubles aviation's climate contribution. Aviation represents around 10% of Ireland's emissions.

It is really significant.

It is important that we are going to focus on the ETS as a tool but situate it within a wider background. There is no VAT on aviation. If Irish citizens are thinking of buying something, their flight to leave Ireland will look comparatively cheaper because there is no VAT. Similarly, there is no fuel tax. Everyone driving to school, work or wherever knows that when they fill up their car, they are paying a significant portion of tax on that fuel. When planes fill up in Dublin Airport, they do not pay any tax at all. It is quite a privileged regime already. Looking at who flies, unfortunately we do not have statistics for Ireland, but in the UK, which is presumably relatively similar, only about 15% of people in the highest income group do not fly, but in the lowest income group, 75% of people do not fly, so members can see the breakdown there.

The emissions trading system has existed since 2008 and has reduced the emissions of the sectors it covers by 50%. Speaking as a climate activist, we could do a bit better, but it is brilliant and doing a great job. Aviation was included in 2012. That was originally all flights to and from the EU, but there was a lot of diplomatic pressure, so in the end, the EU included only intra-EU flights. That means that flights from Dublin to Athens are included in the emissions trading systems, but flights from Dublin to New York have no climate policy at all, which I think we can all agree is probably not the most sensible policy. That has left a huge gap regarding emissions. It also means that if the average Irish family is going to Spain for a week's holiday, they are covered by the ETS, but a businessperson flying business class to New York is not.

That brings us to revenue opportunities. Putting aviation in the emissions trading system means that all the airlines, in addition to existing intra-EU requirements, will have to purchase allowances for international flights. That gives airlines a clear signal out to 2040 or 2050 of how they need to reduce their emissions. It also curates revenues. Those revenues can be used for clean technologies. There is no silver bullet to aviation. We will not be able to switch out all the fuel. Hopefully, in five or ten years' time, we can switch out quite a bit. There is no real prospect that batteries will be able to do much other than very short-haul flights. What we do have are fuels that can be produced from renewable energy. We can go into more detail on that. Ireland has a great sustainable aviation fuel, SAF, strategy, which looks at those fuels from renewable energy that Ireland could produce. Ireland also has a great hydrogen strategy. The real question is how those are going to be implemented. I suggest that revenues from the emissions trading system on international flights could be key to getting those policies implemented. In addition to using that money for innovation and clean technology, it would provide revenue to support lower income households during the climate transition. Thinking about Ireland's Presidency of the EU and COP at the end of this year, there are many climate finance commitments, which is another area to which revenues could go.

Ireland's EU Presidency starts in July. We are expecting a proposal from the European Commission on 15 July about international flights in the ETS. It is currently looking at the international agreement and assessing that, and will then come forth with a proposal. We are asking the committee to publicly identify climate action, energy sovereignty and clean technologies as core to Ireland's EU Presidency and to advocate within the European Council for the inclusion of international emissions in the emissions trading system.

We are happy to answer any questions.

I thank Ms O'Leary. It was interesting to hear a different perspective. She mentioned the news about the cap at Dublin Airport. No doubt there are mixed views on it from those in environmental agencies and those who live close to the airport. Generally speaking, I think it is good for business and tourism. Notwithstanding that, maybe Ms O'Leary could elaborate on what she thinks are the main opportunities and main challenges for Ireland implementing the green deal. She has addressed the areas that Ireland should prioritise during the EU Presidency and I thank her for that.

The ETS is certainly interesting. How will the expanded ETS affect Ireland's key sectors in aviation, energy, shipping and industry? Does Ms O'Leary think Ireland is using the revenues in an appropriate way? What could be improved in it?

I thank Ms O'Leary for her presentation. It is vital that we are discussing these issues. They are probably often neglected and not highlighted to the extent they should be.

Ms O'Leary spoke about potential priorities for the Presidency, which we are hosting in July, and the ETS review more generally. Could she speak a bit more about what safeguards she thinks are needed to ensure that ETS revenues accelerate decarbonisation rather than fill general budget gaps or go into the abyss, so to speak?

Going back to the EU Presidency, the green deal has been mentioned. We are probably not delivering on that in the way we should. Particularly under this Commission, it is probably not getting the priority it was getting in the last one. How does Ms O'Leary think that Ireland can balance its economic interests with climate leadership when we are in negotiations on the ETS revision? Climate has to take priority but it has to be balanced with our economic interests. What is the best way to do that?

Ms O'Leary spoke about inequality in aviation within the EU versus outside the EU. If the EU moves beyond the carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation, CORSIA, deal, which I understand was a compromise, rather than us enforcing the same kinds of fee on flights from outside the EU, which CORSIA was founded as a means of addressing but is seemingly largely ineffective at, how will that potentially impact our relations with non-EU aviation powers? How do the witnesses see that playing out? It has been very problematic in the past.

I thank the Senators for the questions. There are a few themes between both sets. Maybe one of the things to start with is Ireland's economic interests, tourism and balancing it all. Statistics from the Central Statistics Office show that Irish people going abroad spend more money abroad than tourists do coming into Ireland. We have a tourism deficit, so every year, more money goes abroad than comes in. I think that is lost a lot in the debate. The cap on Dublin Airport was not put in place for climate reasons, and as a climate advocate, I do not want to say that I support lifting the cap per se, but it was not designed for climate purposes and that is fair enough. There could be a cap and most of the flights under it could be long haul, and that might be worse than more short-haul flights. In that sense, it is not necessarily well designed for climate purposes, but I guess that is where the emissions trading system is good policy, because every airline pays the same price for carbon dioxide across the EU.

Every airline pays it and it is quite a fair and even measure.

Looking at the broader ETS in different sectors in Ireland, one of the interesting things is that the international shipping sector has been under the ETS for two years now. It is all journeys that come to EU ports but only 50% of each journey, if that makes sense. What we are suggesting for the ETS and what the Commission is looking at is that it would be just departing flights from the EU. That would give the other country the possibility to regulate the other flight departing from there if it was so inclined. There is also an agreement to exempt all flights to least developed countries and small island developing states, so that those economies that are dependent on tourism and are climate vulnerable or are not very developed will not be impacted by the emissions trading system.

To come back to the question around non-EU aviation powers, it is definitely a delicate one. I cannot gloss over the fact that currently, climate is not a high geopolitical priority anywhere. Countries that try to take the lead on climate can come under fire from particular other countries at the moment. No doubt those countries would not like this. Ireland, however, has multilateral obligations under the Paris Agreement and has been a real leader in multilateralism around the world. Iif we are not going to do this, and there are other policies that could be put in place, what is it we are going to do? We have removed the passenger cap on Dublin Airport and there is nothing else in place. The climate science is not going to change. If anything, it will get starker. We have seen the floods in Ireland over the past few weeks. Yes, it will be hard and I do not envy the committee members. I am sitting here in my climate NGO and all I have is the science and I can come to the committee with the economics and everything. The committee members will be the ones who actually have to go out and do this. They have my full support and I will do anything I can, but I do not envy them. It is not an easy ask but, equally, what is the alternative? Will the EU continue to be a climate leader or will it not?

In relation to Ireland, especially, that is one of the things with Dublin Airport and the cap. There was a threatened lawsuit by airlines from America and I have no doubt they would have followed through with that. This is where the EU can come together as one and stand up and say that climate and protecting climate-vulnerable countries is part of our values and who we are and that that is what we are going to do. It is a reasonable, sensible policy. Ryanair estimates that the current price is about €5 on every flight. It will probably be a bit more for international flights because they are longer and there are more emissions. It will not double the price. It is very reasonable.

I will come in about the safeguards because it is a good question and it is something the EU has looked at around the issue of ETS. There are already safeguards and it is already mandated by a directive that all money brought in from ETS has to go towards climate action. We do not know or have an exact figure for what each country gets. We are looking at a figure of the ETS bringing in €41 billion over a certain period. The figures are contained in a report. That safeguard is there and it is really important it not get lost and that, as Ms O'Leary is saying, it definitely go towards climate finance and energy affordability. The other side of it relates to the hydrogen innovation fund and so on. All those funds are fed by ETS. That goes to the question about the Commission. There is a serious amount of pressure at the moment. There are issues around deregulation and an omnibus package going before the Commission. Transport is not yet part of the omnibus package but I think the Commission, just like the UK Parliament with its air passenger tax, would be loath to lose that revenue source. When we are talking about competitiveness and what we see around the EV market and the role China has played in ensuring EV is more competitive, this is a really big moment to start picking innovation in renewable sustainable aviation fuel, SAF, and looking at those changes we need to make now and investing in them.

In regard to the other issues around economic interests and climate, I will re-emphasise what Ms O'Leary was saying about the tourism deficit. Opportunity Green has done research, and it is contained in the report as well. The New Economic Forum is also doing research on how in well-to-do countries, once we open up those flights, extend caps and expand, we are encouraging people to leave the country. The only year in which people in Ireland have spent more on domestic tourism was during the pandemic, but let us not mention that. When we are talking about the cap, we really want parliamentarians to look at that research. A lot of the time, research on tourism and flights is dependent on airline and industry body research. It would be good to have a look at other types of research when looking at the cap and the legislative proposal that will come before this committee.

I thank Ms Tunney for her very comprehensive answer. We will take questions from a few more members.who have indicated.

I thank the witnesses for their time and contributions so far. Appearing before a committee, they may feel obliged to be a bit diplomatic in terms of their descriptions of certain countries not taking climate change seriously. Some of us do not feel as constrained. Let us talk about Europe for a second. In regard to the European Green Deal, going back to the 2019 European Parliament versus the 2024 one, there has been a watering down of it and more populist types of governments have come in. I will not go beyond Orbán. I cannot name the Prime Minister of Slovakia even though I probably should be able to. Climate change is the kicked dog of politics. We have seen this with Donald Trump totally ignoring the whole situation and using his "Drill, baby, drill" terminology. It is hugely important that Europe maintain its leadership insofar as it can on the issues.

On aviation, I note the witnesses' comments on the cap. I was historically against increasing the numbers going into Dublin Airport until I had an almost Damascene conversion and realised that in the global and Irish contexts, we will have more tourists coming in and out. People from climate-affected countries in southern Europe want a bit of respite from the hot weather and want to come to Ireland. We have tourism potential. Equally, a lot of Irish people want to get away from our miserable, rainy weather. If we ignore climate, it is a good thing that as a small island nation we have international trade and travel. The question is how we can make it sustainable. Now, within the EU context itself, carbon is taken into consideration. There was talk that the EU would then move towards creating a tax on outward flights but not on inward flights. I think we should tie it into the whole geopolitical situation and say, as we would to the IT companies, that these are the values and that this is what we are living up to, so that if someone is coming in from the US or going to the US, we should have some sort of charge.

I am interested in the witnesses' views on two things. One is the fact we do not have direct excise duty on kerosene, which is hugely polluting. The witnesses mentioned the hydrogen strategy. I raised the national hydrogen implementation plan with the Taoiseach today and told him we are going too slowly and not doing enough. We have huge potential to export stuff to Germany, for example, overall reducing costs to consumers in areas like aviation and shipping. With hydrogen we need more storage, so for shipping it may be a challenge to roll it out over a period. We have a lot of ferries that transport people. Should the European Union look at ferries, as well as aviation, in terms of using economic methods to encourage the use of alternative fuels?

For short-haul flights, we are very close with battery technology to go from Dublin to Manchester, for example, or even maybe Dublin to London. However, hydrogen is the game-changer for flights across the EU and possibly even for transatlantic. We have to push hydrogen big time. Should Ireland be leading on that and should developing a hydrogen economy across Europe be one of the key themes of its Presidency?

In relation to the ETS and the transatlantic flights, within Europe all flights are within the ETS but all transatlantic flights are exempt from the ETS. Obviously, Opportunity Green is in discussions with the Government around that. What is the Government coming back with and saying?

Regarding the cap on Dublin Airport, would all climate groups and NGOs be of the same view as Opportunity Green in terms of getting rid of the cap?

In respect of fuel tax, nobody likes taxes. How is that discussion going with the Government and the aviation industry?

Regarding how ETS expansion is going with the Government, at the moment it sits with the Commission. Once that review is published in mid-July, we will have a better sense of where some governments stand and in particular, we hope, our Government. As for engagement on it, there has been a lot of pressure not to expand the ETS from some airline associations, particularly international long-haul carriers.

What reasons do they give?

There are many reasons but under CORSIA, offsetting scheme set up by the International Civil Aviation Organization, ICAO, we are seeing some of the submissions suggesting that after 13 years we should wait a bit longer to make that work, even though it is meant to finish in 2035. Ms O'Leary might want to come in on this more. The suggestion is to level the playing field by getting rid of the cap and trade and not using the process that works quite well. It is not all aviation sectors. We run SASHA Coalition, which works with first movers, smaller aviation and groups. Some members are Irish, such as NEG8 Carbon, which is looking at carbon capture. There are industries that want this to be extended and that see the allowances as something that keeps the potential of their industry alive.

We have not heard much on the Irish Government's situation on ETS. I know the revenue is welcome here from the other energy industries and the other ETS covered. I will let Ms O'Leary come in more on that.

On the climate cap and other organisations, there may not be mixed views but I think we would like to see what some Senators and Deputies are suggesting. Aviation is not going to stop tomorrow. That is not feasible or possible and we are not here to say that. We are trying to determine how we decarbonise the sector and get it to the future. What we do, which may be different, is look at those pathways to decarbonisation very specifically, particularly around renewable, eSAF and hydrogen, and work with the sector and the first movers that are bringing that. Maybe that separates us. We still do think there is an aviation problem and an issue. We cannot just continue to grow without any sense of what that is doing to the planet. We are trying to do that.

On tax, I feel there is an openness to it. Our report focuses on ETS, but we do look at the UK tax and the French tax. It is kind of 50:50 in Europe, where 50% of countries have taxes on aviation. Again, it is another massive resource. We modelled that in Ireland and over a five-year period it could bring in €6.3 billion on a passenger tax.

That is over €1 billion a year.

Yes, it is a lot of money. It is something we have talked to the Minister and the Department of finance about. I do not think there is an opposition to it per se; it is just the political will. As a mechanism it could really work. If we look at the UK Parliament and any of the reports from the finance members with the certainty of that revenue stream coming in every year, they would never get rid of it now and it has been in place since the 2000s under a very different government. I think there is an openness and it is an opportunity. I will let Ms O'Leary come in on the other areas, but I hope that answers the Senator's question.

To add to that on a few different bits, one of the reasons we do not have a duty on kerosene yet goes back to the Chicago Convention of the 1940s, which was the international agreement on aviation that stipulated that a country could not tax fuels that were onboard the aircraft when it landed in the jurisdiction. It was a kind of anti-double taxation treaty. However, the airline industry has taken that to say it is illegal under international law to tax kerosene at all. We have now done some legal analysis, backed up by very senior barristers, to show that is not what the agreement says at all.

To answer some of the other questions regarding what the Government is saying, etc., and perhaps this is beyond the realm of this committee, the aviation industry is very united and very strong. Part of that is because every country has its own aviation company. Quite often, and for a long time, they had a direct link to the government and could open doors in a way that environmental NGOs cannot. In addition, there is very little philanthropic funding for environmental organisations like ours to work on aviation. It is a very big imbalance. The science is on our side but the lobbying is, unfortunately, on the other side. In governments there is a fear of anything that will increase the cost of aviation. It is just not a headline that any government wants at all.

Is that true even though technically the witnesses are encouraging an equal and possibly cheaper fuel by promoting the development of alternative, carbon-neutral sources?

I have not seen any analysis that has shown that would be cheaper. At the moment, when using oil, a lot of the impacts are just not paid for by the aviation industry. Other people pay for them. In the short term at least, producing fuels from renewable energy into hydrogen and potentially into e-kerosene is going to be more expensive. There is really no way we are going to solve the climate crisis without aviation getting more expensive. It is a very difficult sell. The airlines come out immediately against any sign of it and say someone is trying to make people's family holidays more expensive. That is not what is actually going on because at the moment, aviation is in the ETS for inter-EU flights and the average family holiday is not flying to New York. They are flying to southern Spain or wherever it is, or Spaniards are coming here to enjoy all the rain we have had. However, that is the way it is portrayed and it is a very strong lobby group.

Coming back to the fuels, we are the secretariat for the SASHA Coalition, which is the Skies and Seas Hydrogen-fuels Accelerator Coalition.

That is snappy.

Exactly, that is why it is styled SASHA. It is actually raising awareness for shipping and aviation companies around the use of green hydrogen and future fuels for them. It is made up of these amazing startups that are doing incredible things and bringing jobs. There are a few Irish groups in there. For Ireland it is a huge opportunity. If we can get the hydrogen strategy right and get the renewables in place, Ireland could absolutely be a hub for this.

In terms of pricing, for example, today the amount of excess generated by renewables is relatively small but we do have peaks. However, as we expand our wind, and we should have also tidal and wave if we are serious, we will have a massive amount of excess energy, which, from a marketing point of view targeting aviation and shipping, could be subsidised to keep prices lower than by using traditional fossil fuels. That is where I am coming from there because otherwise it is just going to go into the ether. We need to create a critical mass and industry is the first place to get that critical mass because hydrogen will not be rolled out domestically.

Thanks, Deputy Gogarty.

I wanted a quick response on that.

I thought it was a statement.

I will try not to come back a second time.

That is a third time. Anyway, does Ms O'Leary want to answer that? Then we will go on to Deputy Crowe. I thought it was a statement more than a query.

I was asking about potential - is there potential there by subsidising that access that would not otherwise-----

I cannot wait for the day where we have excess renewable energy and we fund it into aviation fuel. I look forward to that day, for sure.

I apologise - I missed the opening statement as I was in the Dáil talking about legacy issues. I suppose we are talking about legacy issues here too. It is a continuation of a different type.

I should start by saying I live in an area in Tallaght where I hear the American flights going over the roof of my home. I suppose I have skin in the game if we expand the thing and especially if we expand night time flights. That can be particularly difficult for people. People think of those who live beside the airport and so on but these flights are coming in over a larger area.

I am old enough to remember when aeroplanes actually used to dump fuel - that was not too long ago either - for safety reasons. The flights would be coming in and they dumped fuel because they had too much on board but now there is the increased cost of fuel and so on. I think we all accept that hydrogen and clean energy is the way forward and it is about how we actually get to there. We can think back to the dangers of travel – the blimps and everything else - in the early 1900s. At that stage, they thought that was the way forward.

Where are things at in relation to all this with Government policy on production of hydrogen, particularly offshore, wave technology and so on? We are still developing all this. A lot of the technology that we are relying on for the future is still being developed. The witnesses are talking about the challenges and saying that if we put up the price of fuel, the industry will put that on the customer and that might make it impossible for some people to travel but will not impact those who are wealthy and so on. In the interim, would it be simpler to look at some of the planes that are coming into our airspace? For instance, the newer planes do not use as much fuel and are better for the environment. Might that be a pathway which would be more acceptable to people? It is a bit like what we did on the roads, moving from diesel to hybrid to electric - although we are not being very successful on that. I am making a suggestion that with aviation we look at that as an interim. I cannot see this Government introducing a tax on aviation fuel that would increase the price for passengers. It may not harm those who are wealthy who can offset it or could pay towards a carbon tax or whatever unlike for poorer people who want to get away.

I am not a climate denier. You only have to go outside the door to see what is happening there. Yesterday, at the committee on the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement we talked about PEACEPLUS money and where it was being spent. Take Lough Neagh, for example. You can see the blooms in Lough Neagh from space. We can see what is happening all around us and the question is on the measures we want to take. I am suggesting something that is more acceptable to ordinary punters who want their holiday in the sun or whatever else, which is that we look at the planes. That might be the message Mr. Ryanair might come out with and say that it will modernise its fleet and so on. I am just throwing that out as a suggestion.

Is anyone else indicating? Does Deputy Ó Murchú have a little query for us?

Yes. Apologies. I was at the drug treatment court, actually, so I have heard none of the answers the witnesses have given to any questions. I can imagine where this has gone on what we need to see, what changes can be made and what they are proposing. We are talking about everything from shipping through to aviation. The easiest thing to answer would be on the major policy changes we need to see from a governmental point of view that can have a major impact on their main considerations.

One other question. The witnesses spoke about CORSIA. There is a review due in July. What are the indications in relation to that? I am conscious that will be coming around the period of the Irish Presidency.

On putting in some kind of plane standards for the most efficient planes, there is an international standard on CO2 that comes out of the International Civil Aviation Organization, the international body on aviation. Unfortunately it is a bit different from the car industry because we have two dominant players, Airbus and Boeing. With that duopoly they have a lot of power. The committee on environmental protection, which is part of ICAO, has agreed that CO2 standard and in that regard it is necessary to sign a non-disclosure agreement and nothing is public. I think it would be quite difficult to do then because Airbus and Boeing are not companies that will tell you how efficient their planes are to any degree. Ryanair’s business model involves buying new planes as frequently as it can whereas some of the other companies do not do that. Ultimately the question is how to force the companies to pay for that and would that not end up increasing the cost of flights anyway. There would be some benefit at the margin from increased efficiency but ultimately we are going to have to change the fuels. The good thing about the emissions trading system is that it is a stable policy that looks decades into the future and therefore you know the trajectory for how you have to reduce emissions. For some companies, buying more efficient planes would be part of that but ultimately we will have to do a lot more than that. It might be an interim measure but I do not know anyone who is looking at that from an industry perspective because it is very hard to break through that duopoly of Airbus and Boeing.

That might answer Deputy Ó Murchú’s question to some extent. The main policy proposal we are here today on is putting international aviation in the emissions trading system.

There was a comprehensive opening statement which we will give to the Deputy.

We have not talked about CORSIA a huge amount. CORSIA is the carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation. It is an international agreement which was agreed because the EU put aviation in the ETS. There had been discussions about what to do about the climate impact of aviation since the 1990s in ICAO in Montreal and it was only when the EU ETS came into place that those negotiations actually moved forward. What was agreed in the end was that aviation would offset all emissions above the emissions in 2020. When 2020 rolled around it turned out there were very few flights.

Lo and behold, the airlines got together for an emergency measure and said when they said 2020, they meant 2019. It goes to show they did not have the ability to even stick to that commitment. In addition to that, because they changed that year of flights and because of the pandemic resulting in flights only reaching their 2019 level now, it means nothing has been offset. There is no offset that has been submitted internationally yet. We might get some by the end of this year but even still, it would be a small number and nowhere near what we need in terms of the Paris Agreement.

What about the Single European Sky and that idea that Ryanair and others talked about. They also talked about the difficulty of actually delivering on it but I imagine that is the straightest, easiest journey. On that basis, you are using a hell of a lot less fuel.

Yes. Single European Sky and the extent to which we can actually make the journeys as efficient as possible is absolutely great. I put the caveat of non-CO2 emissions on that. That mostly consists of contrails in the sky and they double the climate impact. Far more important than getting the most direct route is to get a route that avoids contrails emissions. At the moment, there is nothing anywhere in the world that promotes that. As a result of our location and the amount of airspace Ireland is responsible for, we could actually do a huge amount on that.

One of the things we are working on is a charge for non-CO2 emissions under the emissions trading system but we would say any airline that shows it is even doing trials to avoid non-CO2 emissions would not have to pay that. We would then get all of the data over the next five to ten years to really understand how to avoid those. It is quite a cheap mitigation measure. The science has been relatively uncertain for a while but is much clearer now. That is one of the things we have avoided today because there is so much detail but a lot could be done on it.

How far are we on aviation-----

I thank Ms O'Leary. Sorry, Deputy Ó Murchú. I am the Chair, here.

Oh, yes. No-----

It is not an over and back but I have given him a couple of bites at it already-----

Yes, I know. I realise that.

I do not want to stress it anymore. We have a good body of work ourselves to do afterwards in private.

Yes, I know that.

I hope he keeps this energy for that.

Yes, that is it. We will bounce him hard, now. We want them all to erode. Very briefly, we will give Deputy Ó Murchú the last word.

On aviation fuel, have we seen anything about any major moves that can improve things?

Deputy Gogarty gave us a whole lesson on this before Deputy Ó Murchú came in. It was about hydrogen and everything else. If Ms O'Leary could briefly recap that, it would be great.

For short haul flights, we will hopefully have battery airplanes relatively soon. Ultimately, for anything medium haul onwards, we would either need hydrogen as a fuel directly or else replicating oil but from hydrogen, such as e-kerosene. Ireland actually has a sustainable aviation fuel strategy which looks at this and is very good. One of our suggestions is that the revenues from the emissions trading system on international aviation could be used to really encourage that and develop that market here.

It could be ring-fenced.

Yes.

I will just add something on the carbon offsetting and reduction scheme for international aviation, CORSIA, as it was mentioned earlier and the timeline and what is happening was asked about. In July, the Directorate-General for Mobility and Transport, DG MOVE, and the Directorate-General for Climate Action, DG CLIMA, will review it. At the moment, we have a sense they are leaning towards something along expanding ETS to international aviation. Alongside that, there will be a legislative plan from the Commission.

The timeline of the Presidency - that is why we are here - is that it starts in July and it is only a six-month Presidency between the summer and Christmas. We would love to see the Irish Government ensure the Council is ready for this. Obviously, we will be trying have an honest broker position but will ensure that conversation happens or if it happens after the Presidency, we will have a really informed Irish Government at the Council. I just wanted to give that outline of the timeline.

I thank Ms Tunney. It has been very comprehensive and a good discussion that has made us aware of a lot of things we would not have been aware of heretofore. As a committee, we would be delighted to bring some of the proposals forward and push the agenda during our EU Presidency. Is everyone happy enough?

We got a lot of follow-up between the conversations. Normally, we are supposed to wait.

I thank everyone for their contributions. On behalf of the committee, I thank Ms O'Leary and Ms Tunney for their engagement with our committee today. It has been a very interesting and informative discussion. We have a good bit of work to do, so we will now go into private session.