Latest news with #CCAC
Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Automotive
- Irish Independent
Government advisers call for tripling of EV grants in bid to slash transport emissions
A new top-rate grant of €10,000 would apply to smaller models costing less than €35,000, with priority given to lower-income households in areas lacking public transport. The cost would be at least partly funded by increased taxes on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars. The calls come from the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC), which says the Government is stalling on steps to achieve the dramatic cut needed in greenhouse gas emissions from transport. In a report published today, the council says sales of new EVs fell 24pc last year and there were just 72,640 electric cars on the roads – a figure that must increase almost 12-fold to meet the 2030 target of 845,000. Public EV charging points are only one-third the EU average rate – seven per 10,000 people compared to 20 per 10,000 across the EU. School buses carry just 18pc of pupils, with hundreds of thousands left to be ferried by car every day. Re-alloaction of road space to cycle lanes and safer footpaths has been 'incremental' instead of transformational. Ireland is one of the few EU countries without Low-Emission Zones that designate certain urban areas for EVs, bikes and pedestrians only. Transport emissions fell by 1.3pc last year – the first reduction since the temporary fall during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, emissions need to reduce by 50pc over the next five years and the CCAC says there is no sign of this happening. Transport uses more energy than any other sector in Ireland and it produces the second most greenhouse gas emissions after agriculture, accounting for 21.5pc of the national total. ADVERTISEMENT Public transport passenger numbers are rising and EV numbers are increasing but the growing population and increasing size of cars cancels out the gains. 'Urgent and decisive action must now be taken by Government to end our reliance on fossil fuels and deliver the kind of transformative change that is required in this sector,' said CCAC chair Marie Donnelly. Recommended actions include a revamp of EV supports, retaining the existing €3,500 grant for new cars up to the value of €60,000 but offering the much greater incentive for smaller, more efficient cars to applicants in lower income brackets and certain geographic areas. Scrappage schemes for petrol and diesel cars and supports to buy second-hand EVs are also recommended, including possibly interest-free loans. The CCAC is also urging much greater investment in all forms of public transport and a substantial widening of eligibility for the school transport scheme. Concerns are also raised about the vulnerability of key transport infrastructure – in particular ports – to extreme weather events such as Storm Éowyn last January.
RTÉ News
3 days ago
- Automotive
- RTÉ News
CCAC recommends extra €10k in grants over purchase of EVs
The Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) is recommending that the Government provides an additional €10,000 in grants to low income households for the purchase of electric vehicles, particularly in areas with limited access to public transport. It is also calling for scrappage schemes and other transport-related incentives to help accelerate the switch to battery-electric vehicles and decarbonise private transport. The transport sector already accounts for 43% of all energy used in Ireland. However, the sale of highly efficient battery electric vehicles fell by 24% last year, while greenhouse gas emissions reductions from public transport and more efficient cars were effectively wiped out because of the growth in demand for transport. The CCAC is alarmed by these trends, especially since a 50% reduction in transport emissions must be delivered by 2030. Its annual review of the transport sector calls for urgent Government intervention to support sustained emissions reductions and more to be done to encourage people to switch to public transport. It notes that 773,000 primary and post-primary pupils do not have access to the School Transport Scheme; that 50% of students travel to their place of education by car; and that almost one in five car journeys nationwide are for the purpose of education. The council says it strongly supports expanding eligibility for the heavily subsidised school bus scheme as well as greater integration of school transport and public transport services. It is also calling for an expansion of the Safe Routes to School Programme to support the required shift in the sector. According to its report, the total stock of Battery Electric Vehicles on Irish roads at the end of last year was 72,640. This is just 3.05% of the total passenger car fleet. The Climate Change Advisory Council wants existing incentives for electric vehicles to be maintained and enhanced but says the EV grant system needs to be refocused. Its call is for increased supports for purchasing more efficient and cheaper electric vehicles, including second-hand EVs. However, it says those additional supports should be focused on areas with the poorest access to public transport services and Just Transition Principles. Additional grants of up to €10,000 for fully electric vehicles costing less than €35,000 for lower income households will be key, it says. It is also calling for an accelerated roll-out of publicly accessible electric vehicle charging infrastructure alongside the ambitious roll-out of electricity network reinforcement. At the end of last year there were 2,802 publicly accessible "slower" AC charging points and 786 fast DC charging points for electric vehicles. This equates to seven charging points per 10,000 people in Ireland, which is considerably below the EU-27 average of 20 charging points per 10,000 people, or the average of 13 per 10,000 people in the UK. Over €294 million was allocated in funding for active travel infrastructure this year, bringing the total investment since 2020 to over €1.25 billion. In terms of mode share, cycling increased slightly from 1.8% of journeys in 2022 to 1.9% in 2023. Meanwhile, walking declined from 19.3% of trips to 17.7% overall. Commenting on the launch of the Transport Review, Marie Donnelly, Chair of the Climate Change Advisory Council said: "Transport is Ireland's biggest source of energy demand, and emissions from the sector must reduce by half if the sector is meet its target. "To achieve this, urgent and decisive action must now be taken by Government to end our reliance on fossil fuels and deliver the kind of transformative change that is required in this sector. "We have seen signs of progress in public transport with more than half of the redesigned BusConnects network in Dublin implemented, a 48% increase in passenger boardings on redesigned routes, and a significant growth in the number of EV and hybrid buses on our roads. "However much more must be done to improve the integration of school transport with public transport services, which will be vital in helping to reduce car journeys and tackle emissions."
Gulf Today
09-06-2025
- Business
- Gulf Today
Culinary grads learn how to cook up a business
Reem Helou was listening attentively. It was the last day of her menu planning class in the Community College of Allegheny County's (CCAC) culinary programme. Her professor, Charles Wallander, an adjunct instructor and advisor at the school, was going over the final assignment, which was due before the stroke of midnight that night. 'If you're going to be, at some point in time, an owner, a director, a general manager, a chef, anybody who's in charge of menu items, you've got to know how to price out and how to create menus,' he said. 'A menu is also a business plan,' said Wallander, who has held numerous positions in the hospitality industry. The information you use to plan a menu, he explained to his class, is information you could take to a bank to get a loan, for example. Baked into what some might think is a simple sheet of paper is the restaurant concept, target market, price point, location, a demographic study of the location (how busy it is, age groups, marital status of the local population, income, ethnicity) and a feasibility study (including costs and consideration of how a specific concept will work in a specific neighbourhood). For Helou, the menu planning assignment was 'probably one of the hardest projects I've ever had to do in my life. ... Very hard, but very good.' Originally from Homs, Syria, she was driven to emigrate, with her family, by the civil war in her home country. Now 30, she left Syria at 17, and moved to Detroit to live with her sister. (Her parents moved to Ohio.) When her sister and her sister's husband moved to Pittsburgh, she moved with them. Upon arrival, she was not even sure if her family would be staying in the US. Once settled in Pittsburgh, she had a few false starts in her studies. Initially, she earned a CCAC degree in early childhood education, then studied creative writing at the University of Pittsburgh. She decided to pursue an associate's degree in culinary arts because she had been working at a local restaurant as a server and then had been promoted to manager. 'That's when I was like, OK, I want to learn more about the industry,' she said. But as part of the program, she had to learn cooking skills as well as management skills — and she realised she loved cooking. That changed her career path from front-of-the-house manager to chef. She currently is a pastry chef at the Argentinian restaurant Balvanera in the Strip District, where she works under head pastry chef Ginger Baldwin. The opportunity to learn baking and pastry with chefs at CCAC has been 'great,' she said, and her experience at Balvanera 'amazing.' Before continuing on her career, though, she had to finish her project. For the final project, besides concepting, analyses and so on, students had to price out a recipe and indicate how they arrived at the figure. They had to research ingredients and prices of preparing dishes, including easily forgotten ingredients like spices, and consider the 'free' items that go with certain plates — like rolls, butter, sides. Although not difficult, there was a lot of math involved. Students had to explain how they would accommodate dietary restrictions, and consider the typography of the menu, the placement of items on the menu (high-profit items are given the top right corner) and the organisation of dishes into categories (appetizers, soups, salads, entrees, sides). Then there's the psychological, marketing aspect that goes into menu writing. Wallander offered up a succulent-sounding example: 'A six-ounce Black Angus filet mignon char-grilled to perfection, drizzled with a savory chanterelle mushroom sauce.' 'When you read a good menu description, you can almost taste it,' he said. Included in the project was also a one-page training document to explain to servers how to market the menu, how to upsell and steer customers to high-value items. 'You should really love your menu,' Wallander said. 'It's the most important thing in the house.' The following week, the projects had been submitted and amid the strains of 'Pomp and Circumstance' at universities and schools all around town, CCAC culinary students were also graduating. Tribune News Service
Irish Times
30-05-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
Why does Ryan Tubridy's €150,000 payment seem like a bigger deal than looming climate fines?
Another week, another warning that Ireland is not going to achieve the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions agreed with the EU and as a result, will face 'billions' in fines. This time it took the form of an Environmental Protection Agency forecast that we will achieve reductions of 23 per cent by 2030 , compared to our target of 51 per cent. It follows last week's warning from the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) and Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) that we face a 'staggering' bill of between €8 billion and €26 billion if we don't cut emissions. The bill takes the forms of an obligation to buy credits from other member states that exceed their targets. Funnily enough, national panic has not ensued and the opposition parties have devoted their energy to beating up the management of the national broadcaster live on Oireachtas TV. Whether or not Ryan Tubridy repays €150,000 to RTÉ would seem rather beside the point if the State is really facing a €26 billion bill in five years' time. Surely at least one member of the Oireachtas is wondering where we'll get the money. READ MORE Only a fool or a US president would deny global warming and its potential consequences at this stage. Persuading people to accept big changes to their lives in order to cut emissions is arguably the most difficult and most important challenge facing this Government and any government that comes after it. We don't even seem to be trying. The EU's efforts to make the impact of the climate crisis more immediate and tangible – in the form of fiscal penalties – should have pushed the Government into action. But they clearly don't take the threat of such enormous fines seriously. And they are probably on safe ground. Despite this week's upbeat assessment that the EU expects to come very close to its target of reducing emissions by 55 per cent compared to 1990 levels, the picture at the level of individual countries is much less even. Ireland may well be bottom of the class. The EU expects us to only achieve 60 per cent of targeted reductions, but we are in good company. The three largest EU members, Germany, France and Italy – which account for about 60 per cent of EU economic output – don't look like they are going to make it either. France will come close as the EU expects it will achieve 98 per cent of targeted emissions. However, its rate of reduction is slowing. Achieving reductions in areas including transport is proving difficult and forestry is absorbing less carbon than predicted. Ireland has experienced difficulties in the same areas. Italy will fall significantly short at 93 per cent of targeted emissions. Its plans around the adoption of electric vehicles and other measures are deemed unrealistic by Brussels. The desire of the country's right-leaning prime minister Giorgia Meloni to make Italy a 'gas hub' in the Mediterranean doesn't chime either. Germany – the largest EU economy – will miss its target by a lot. It is expected to achieve only 82 per cent of its target. Reversing the slowdown in Germany's manufacturing-driven economy is the top priority of the incoming coalition, which is less wedded to climate protection than its predecessor. The most likely scenario seems to be that we will arrive in a situation in five years' time where the three biggest EU economies – and three biggest contributors to the EU budget – undershoot their emission reduction targets. [ Smoking ban has important lessons for Ireland's approach to climate issues Opens in new window ] [ Sorry, kids. We blew your climate budget - but we really love our SUVs Opens in new window ] The idea that they will spend billions buying credits off EU member states that they already provide significant indirect support to seems far-fetched. It would be an act of economic self-harm on the level of Brexit or Donald Trump's tariffs. Ireland will be able to hide under their coat-tails, but if that is the strategy – as it appears to be – it's a pretty pathetic one. It says nothing good about our politics or our society that we duck these issues. It does say a lot about an endemic lack of seriousness that characterises a lot of public life. Leaving aside the moral failure that it represents, there is a danger that our already dwindling stock of goodwill with our European partners will shrink even further. Giving the two fingers to the EU's flagship climate action plan is not going to endear us to Brussels and the other member states.
Technical.ly
14-05-2025
- Business
- Technical.ly
A Pittsburgh community college leans into ‘mechatronics' to upskill for debt-free careers
A federally funded mechatronics lab in Pittsburgh is helping students land tech jobs quickly without taking on student debt. In Pittsburgh's shifting landscape, regional manufacturers say demand for skilled workers in the field is growing fast, but companies are struggling to fill roles, according to Justin Starr, an endowed professor of advanced technology at the Community College of Allegheny County (CCAC). His program aims to change that by preparing students with the skills needed to step into modern manufacturing careers, without putting them thousands of dollars in the hole. 'The story that sometimes gets lost is that manufacturing is different than it used to be,' Starr told CCAC launched a new lab for mechatronics, which is the study of mechanical, electrical and computer systems used to operate and automate modern manufacturing machines, in 2023. Backed by $1.8 million from the federal Build Back Better (BBB) Regional Challenge grant, the space is outfitted with cutting-edge robotics equipment commonly used in today's manufacturing facilities. Mechatronics students at CCAC have a graduation and job placement rate of over 90%, according to Starr, and students are walking away without debt because of the program's low cost, something that's increasingly uncommon in today's education system. 'What we do is teach students to be able to effectively operate advanced manufacturing lines so they can go out there and be the people who are building the equipment of today and tomorrow,' Starr said. Christofer Main, 21, is one of them. As a plastic extrusion technician at VEKA, a window systems manufacturer in Beaver County, Main is completing a two-year apprenticeship that allows him to work and earn a salary while studying at CCAC. Main said the program was a clear choice, especially now, when he has a baby on the way. 'With college, my wife, for example, she's $40,000 in debt,' Main said. 'I don't have $40,000 just laying around. Monthly payments are crazy. This way, I still get paid to come to school and I don't have to worry about that debt.' Fast, reliable access to a skillset that pays The program's associate degree graduation rates have fallen in recent years, but Starr said that's actually a sign of success. Students are getting the skills they need to be productive with employers after just one semester or one year. '[Students] will go get a job, and they might not stick around for a full two years,' Starr said, 'because they're making $35 an hour and they're 18 years old.' Ethan Miller, 18, another VEKA apprentice studying at CCAC, is currently making around $40,000, plus free schooling, straight out of high school. 'You can't go to college and get paid for it unless you're a football player,' Miller said. 'I can get paid to go to school, and school is free, no debt. That beats college.' For some, CCAC's program is also a path to stability in a new country. Nahid Khajazada came to Pittsburgh in 2021 after the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan. She's currently living in the city alone while her family remains overseas. After a year in CCAC's mechatronics program, she landed an internship with local startup RealBotics. Khajazada said she hopes to transfer to a four-year university and eventually start her own company. 'Here, I've learned a lot of things,' she said. 'I'm more confident with how to work with this kind of stuff.' 'Mechatronics' over 'advanced manufacturing' hooks more people Funding for CCAC's mechatronics lab comes from the New Economy Collaborative (NEC) of Southwestern Pennsylvania, which is administering $62.7 million of the BBB Regional Challenge grant. That $62.7 million is part of a broader $1 billion BBB initiative, launched in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan to spur post-pandemic economic recovery and revitalize communities impacted by decades of industrial decline. The NEC is deploying the funds through five projects across 11 counties in the region, including Pittsburgh. CCAC's mechatronics lab is part of Project Three, which focuses on upskilling workers and expanding career pathways into sectors like advanced manufacturing, a major industry in the Pittsburgh region that's driving real economic mobility, Starr said. There are over 90,000 people employed by over 2,800 manufacturing companies in the Pittsburgh region, according to data from the nonprofit organization Pittsburgh Regional Alliance. However, stigma around manufacturing remains, according to Starr. 'We have a lot of students whose parents maybe did manufacturing in the 70s and 80s, and they think it's dirty,' Starr said. 'They think it's a field where their son or daughter could get laid off if they go into it.' To get around this, CCAC uses the term mechatronics to convey that the skills it's teaching are high tech and part of the advanced manufacturing industry. The field blends traditional manufacturing skills, like wiring and mechanical drives, with advanced technologies such as programmable controllers and collaborative robots. 'Technology changes constantly,' Starr said, 'and if we're going to fill a need in the region, we need to train our students to use the equipment that either industry is using today, or that industry is going to be using tomorrow.'
