4. Climate Action

4.1 Climate Action: Our Homes

Emission from Our Homes covers GHG emissions from space and water heating, as well as from electricity consumption. There are also non-energy emissions in Our Homes, such as from food, waste, shopping and other household-related factors that are not included in this category.

Climate Action, like many things, begins at home. We spend much of our time there and we would all like them to be as comfortable and efficient as possible. All homes use electricity and most of the homes in County Sligo use fossil fuels for space & water heating.

At a national level, the Residential sector accounts for about 15% of total energy-related emissions, with the average dwelling emitting 5 tCO₂ per annum[1].

At a local level, the energy and emissions from the Residential sector in Sligo has been calculated to be 167 ktCO2e, which equates to 18% of the total greenhouse gas emissions for the Sligo. Heating accounted for 78 % of these emissions, while electricity consumption accounted for 22%. Residential heating in Sligo comes primarily from fossil fuels such as oil (63%) and peat (20%).

Central Heating Fuel in Occupied Private Households (Census 2016) for County Sligo

The Climate Action Plan 2023 targets a 40% reduction in GHG emissions from the Residential sector and a 75% reduction in emissions from electricity production by 2030. The generation of renewable energy and retrofitting of our buildings, including our homes, will significantly contribute to these reduction targets.

Key measures identified in the National Climate Action Plan 2023 to meet these targets include:

• Increasing the energy efficiency of existing buildings and putting in place policies to deliver zero-emission new builds and continue to ramp up our retrofitting programme.
• Retrofitting up to 120,000 dwellings to BER B2 by 2025 and up to 500,000 by 2030.
• Putting heat pumps into 45,000 existing and 170,000 new dwellings by 2025 and up to 400,000 existing and 280,000 new dwellings by 2030.
• Introducing a new tax incentive to encourage small-scale landlords to undertake retrofitting works while tenants remain in situ.
• Generating up to 0.8 TWh of district heating by 2025 and up to 2.5 TWh by 2030.
• Accelerating the delivery of onshore wind, offshore wind, and solar.
• Supporting at least 500 MW of local community-based renewable energy projects and increased levels of new micro-generation and small-scale generation.
• Phasing out and ending the use of coal and peat in electricity generation.
• Developing a Green Electricity Tariff by 2025 to allow people to use lower cost renewable electricity at times of high wind and solar generation.

Sligo County Council are retrofitting our own public buildings and social housing stock, including the removal of fossil fuel systems and installation of renewable energy systems and heat pumps. We are also supporting our communities through various funding programmes and partnerships such as the Community Climate Action Fund, SEAI's Better Energy Community Schemes, bridge financing for SECs and the GAA Green Clubs programme. Our planning function also has a key role to play with new buildings and renewable energy projects.

We are looking for your input into our Local Authority Climate Action Plan to help us shape appropriate actions to support emissions from Our Homes.