Ambitious Government targets for emissions reduction are useless without "big ticket" policies, writes Harry McGee, Political Staff
WHEN THE Green Party voted to enter Government in mid-2007, it gave as one of the primary reasons the historic agreement of Fianna Fáil to commit itself to attaining a low-carbon economy.
Specifically, the primary concession made to the Greens in the programme for government was a commitment to reduce the country's carbon emissions by an average of 3 per cent per annum.
From the beginning, the two Green Ministers John Gormley and Eamon Ryan said they had no illusions how difficult this target would be. A cumulative decrease of 15 per cent during a single Government term was almost the political equivalent of putting the genie back into the bottle. When Ireland signed up to the Kyoto agreement, it pledged to keep its carbon emissions to 13 per cent above 1990 levels. At the time, it seemed a reasonable target.
However, the sustained economic boom led to a massive increase in emissions, bringing them to some 25 per cent above 1990 levels by the early years of this decade, over 70 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per annum.
The reason for that was simple: growth in the economy of almost exponential proportions.
A record number of houses were built (peaking at 90,000 per annum) without the higher insulation standards that would have kept emissions lower. And unlike many of our European counterparts, agriculture remains an important sector in the Irish economy, comprising 28 per cent of our emissions.
The biggest contributor to higher emissions was road transport. With car ownership doubling during the period, and with substantial increases in freight traffic, emissions from the transport sector quadrupled, contributing some 26 per cent of all emissions in 2006.
The first climate change strategy - drawn up when Noel Dempsey was minister for agriculture - suggested a number of dramatic measures, including the politically contentious one of reducing the national livestock by 10 per cent. Cattle, sheep and pigs contribute to greenhouse gases by releasing methane. There were expectations that emissions from agriculture would fall as some Irish farmers moved away from livestock under EU agriculture policy. But fluctuations in the price of commodities has resulted in the reduction being less pronounced than projected.
While the full figures on the 2007 emissions will not be released until the end of the year, some of the key indicators suggest no reduction compared to 2006.
Prof Richard Tol of the ESRI has developed a complex mathematical model to estimate the emissions for 2007. His conclusion is that 2007 will show an increase of 4.6 per cent over 2006 because of the reasonable growth that occurred in the economy.
He does say that the figure will be reduced for this year, by 2.2 per cent compared to 2007. However, he says that this is due to the downturn in the economy rather than to any corrective measures. And in the longer-term there are other problems, all of which are attributed to increasing economic growth and prosperity.
This means "big ticket" policies are needed, including congestion charges, livestock reduction, road charges, and a carbon levy.
The first of these, despite some reports to the contrary, may be introduced in the Budget this year.