EUROPEAN UNION (GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION REDUCTIONS, CALCULATION METHODS AND REPORTING REQUIREMENTS) (AMENDMENT) REGULATIONS 2019
Source: Iris Oifigiúl 47 2019-06-11

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paragraphs: These Regulations may be cited as the European Union (Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions, Calculation Methods and Reporting Requirements) (Amendment) Regulations 2019.
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paragraphs: In these Regulations -
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paragraphs: Regulation 2(1) of the Regulations of 2017 is amended -
(a) by the insertion of the following definitions:
“ ‘actual value’ shall be construed in accordance with Regulation 9(3)(b);
‘agricultural, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry residues’ means residues that are directly generated by agriculture, aquaculture, fisheries and forestry excluding residues from related industries or processing;
‘combined method’ shall be construed in accordance with Regulation 9(3)(c);
‘competent authority’ means the Minister for Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht;
‘continuously forested area’ means land spanning more than one hectare with trees higher than five metres and a canopy cover of more than 30 per cent, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ;
‘default value’ shall be construed in accordance with Regulation 9(1)(a);
‘disaggregated default value’ means in relation to biofuel described in the first column of a table in Part D or E of Annex IV to Directive 98/70/EC, the value which corresponds to that description in the third column of that table in Part D or E of that Annex;
‘greenhouse gas emissions from the use of fossil fuel’ means the value given in paragraph 19 of Part C of Annex IV as the fossil fuel comparator for biofuels;
‘highly biodiverse grassland’ means -
(a) in the case of natural grassland, grassland that would remain grassland in the absence of human intervention and which maintains the natural species composition and ecological characteristics and processes, or
(b) in the case of non-natural grassland, grassland that would cease to be grassland in the absence of human intervention and which is species-rich and not degraded, unless evidence is provided that the harvesting of the raw material is necessary to preserve its grassland status;
‘less forested area’ means land spanning more than one hectare with trees higher than 5 metres and a canopy cover of between 10 and 30 per cent, or trees able to reach those thresholds in situ, unless evidence is provided that the carbon stock of the area before and after conversion is such that, when the methodology laid down in Part C of Annex IV to Directive 98/70/EC is applied, the greenhouse gas emission savings stated in Regulation 9(1) would be achieved;
‘low indirect land-use change-risk biofuels’ means biofuels, the feedstocks of which were produced within schemes which reduce the displacement of production for purposes other than for making biofuels and which were produced in accordance with the sustainability criteria for biofuels set out in Regulation 9;
‘nature protection area’ means an area designated -
(a) by law or by the competent authority for nature protection purposes, or
(b) for the protection of rare, threatened or endangered ecosystems or species recognised by international agreements or included in lists drawn up by intergovernmental organisations or the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, subject to their recognition in accordance with the second subparagraph of Article 7c(4) of Directive 98/70/EC;
‘primary forest’ means forest and other wooded land of native species, where there is no clearly visible indication of human activity and the ecological processes are not significantly disturbed;
‘processing residue’ means a substance that is not the end product or products that a production process directly seeks to produce and is not a primary aim of the production process and the process has not been deliberately modified to produce it;
‘Regulations of 2012’ means the European Union (Biofuel Sustainability Criteria) Regulations 2012 ( S.I. No. 33 of 2012 );
‘Regulations of 2014’ means the European Union (Renewable Energy) Regulations 2014 ( S.I. No. 483 of 2014 );
‘renewable liquid and gaseous transport fuels of non-biological origin’ means liquid or gaseous fuels other than biofuels whose energy content comes from renewable energy sources other than biomass, and which are used in transport;
‘starch-rich crops’ means crops comprising mainly cereals (regardless of whether only the grains are used, or the whole plant, such as in the case of green maize, is used), tubers and root crops (such as potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes, sweet potatoes, cassava and yams), and corm crops (such as taro and cocoyam);
‘wetland’ means land that is covered with or saturated by water permanently or for a significant part of the year.”,
and
(b) by the substitution for the definition of “Directive 98/70/EC” of the following:
“ ‘Directive 98/70/EC’ means Directive 98/70/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 October 19981 as amended by -
(a) Commission Directive 2000/71/EC of 7 November 20003 ,
(b) Directive 2003/17/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 March 20034 ,
(c) Regulation (EC) No. 1882/2003 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 September 20035 ,
(d) Directive 2009/30/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 April 20096 ,
(e) Commission Directive 2011/63/EU of 1 June 20117 ,
(f) Commission Directive 2014/77/EU of 10 June 20148 , and
(g) Directive (EU) 2015/1513 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 September 20152 ;”.
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paragraphs: The Regulations of 2017 are amended by the substitution for Regulation 6 of the following Regulation:=
“6. (1) NORA shall designate the supplier or suppliers responsible for monitoring and reporting life cycle greenhouse gas emissions per unit of energy from fuel and energy supplied. In the case of providers of electricity for use in road vehicles, such providers may choose to become a contributor to the reduction obligation laid down in Regulation 8 if they can demonstrate that they can adequately measure and monitor electricity supplied for use in those vehicles.
(2) NORA may permit suppliers of biofuels for use in aviation to choose to become contributors to the reduction obligation set out in Regulation 8 provided that that those biofuels comply with the sustainability criteria set out in Regulation 9.”.
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paragraphs: The Regulations of 2017 are amended in Regulation 7 -
(a) in paragraph (1)(b), by the substitution for “energy.” of “energy, and”,
(b) in paragraph (1), by the insertion after subparagraph (b) of the following subparagraph: