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Displaying items by tag: Climate Council

RTE News reports that hauliers are threatening to hold protests over climate emission cuts to the transport sector and "astronomical costs".

The Irish Road Haulage Association will hold a members meeting in the next fortnight to discuss protests on the back of the Climate Change Advisory Council's emissions recommendations.

It said its members are already at breaking point with rising fuel costs, driver shortages and the Northern Ireland Protocol.

IRHA president Eugene Drennan said hauliers are "deeply concerned" about the impact a cut in emissions in the transport sector will have on the sector.

He said the cuts come as haulage companies face costs of a magnitude never seen before.

"We are deeply concerned about the emissions cuts. We have been labelled as a sector that is going to get a heavy cut," said Mr Drennan.

While acknowledging the level of sectoral cuts are yet to be revealed, he said his members "cannot take any more".

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Published in News Update

According to the Climate Change Advisory Council, investment needs to be made urgently in areas such as decarbonising the electricity system with renewables like offshore winds.

Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, the chair of the Council Marie Donnelly said it was clear that Ireland would not be able to operate a straight linear line from 2021 to 2030 in order to achieve its carbon emission reductions.

She said this is why it was decided that two carbon budgets were needed in order for Ireland to achieve its aim of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 51% within a decade.

The first carbon budget, running from 2021 - 2025, will see emissions reduce by 4.8% on average each year for five years.

The second carbon budget, running from from 2026 - 2030, will see emissions reduce by 8.3% on average each year for five years.

Ms Donnelly said: "The really clear message is that we need to take action now in order to get the benefit of the emission reductions in the second budget period."

More from RTE News here

Published in Power From the Sea

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).