EU emissions target for State ‘inappropriate’, says Minister

Minister for Climate Action Denis Naughten looks set to rankle environmental activists by saying the 2020 target set by the European Union for Ireland on greenhouse emissions is "inappropriate".

On Wednesday, Mr Naughten will publish the first Annual Transition Statement on Climate Change which is designed to show the progress of the Government towards its target of a low carbon economy by 2050.

The data for the transition statement is based on a recent report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which showed a 3.7 per cent rise in emissions last year, across all sectors.

Mr Naughten has accepted it is now projected Ireland’s emissions could be in the range of 6-11 per cent below 2005 levels in 2020 – well short of the 20 per cent target.

He defended the record on the basis that it “reflects our constrained investment capacity for over a decade from 2008 and 2019. Due to the economic crisis, we will not meet our 2020 target, which was, in any case, inappropriate in terms of cost-effectiveness.”

The claim that the targets were inappropriate refer to an ongoing battle between the Government and Europe over how the targets were costed and calculated.

The Government has commissioned research from UCC which bolstered its argument that achieving reductions in agriculture emissions was more expensive in Ireland than elsewhere.

However, critics of current climate change policy have said this Fine Gael-led Government – and the last one– failed to live up to their rhetoric on climate change, particularly in the agriculture sector.

Dramatic reductions

However, October’s budget saw the first modest increase in investment in climate change initiatives in recent years, with €100 million allotted to energy projects, including €7 million to renewable heating.

The transition statement is published ahead of next week’s publication of the draft National Mitigation Plan, Mr Naughten’s first big policy initiative on climate change.

This will detail how Ireland will achieve dramatic reductions in emissions over the next five years. There will be a period of public consultation before the plan is finalised in June.

The transition statement will say the plan would take a “whole-of-Government” approach and each Minister will be required to develop detailed sectoral measures to reduce emissions.

That will be followed by a similar national plan which has to be published by December 2017 at the latest, as set out by the 2015 Act.

The mitigation plan is the second such to be published in the State. Then minister for the environment published a five-year plan in 2007 identifying actions to prevent climate change. That plan lapsed in 2012 and there hasn’t been one for the past four years.

Among the measures Mr Naughten might announce next week is a clean air strategy for Ireland, as well as a joint venture between Coillte and Bord na Móna for biomass burning. A "National Climate Dialogue" will also be launched early next year.

The Green Party and environment groups such as Friends of the Earth have been very critical of the lack of any long-term plan on climate change since 2012.

The new Climate Advisory Council, in its first report, said that failing to meet the 2020 targets would constitute "a significant deviation from the necessary path to decarbonise the economy by 2050".