European Commission proposals to radically cut greenhouse gas emissions and boost the use of renewable energy among member states raise "very serious economic and social issues for Ireland", the Government has said.
Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas: plan gives EU
The Cabinet Committee on Climate Change and Energy Security said today the climate change strategy , which seeks to cut emissions across the union by one fifth by 2020, must take into account the "national circumstances and competitiveness impacts".
The Committee, which is chaired by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern, described the proposals as a major departure from current arrangements under which each Member State is responsible for its emissions.
It warned that Ireland's infrastructural deficit, its projected population growth and the relatively large size of the agricultural sector must be considered before a plan could be agreed.
The European Commission has approved detailed plans to cut planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions by one-fifth and split among EU states a target to produce one-fifth of all power from renewable sources like the wind and sun by 2020.
The targets could cost Ireland as much as €1 billion per year.
Under the EU plan, the Government will be told to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 20 per cent by 2020, compared with the level of emissions generated in 2005. It will also have to generate 16 per cent of its energy needs from renewable energy, a significant increase on the 2 per cent currently produced.
Ireland faces among the toughest targets under an EU burden-sharing agreement that is designed to ensure that the richest member states bear the brunt.
Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso called the fiercely contested package "the right policy framework for transformation to an environment-friendly European economy and to continue to lead the international action to protect our planet".
The Commission aims to spur talks among industrialised countries for a global climate deal by 2009 to help arrest global warming which risks raising sea levels and causing more floods and droughts.
Environmentalists say the cuts are too small to arrest global warning or give a strong lead to the world.
Brussels fine-tuned its plans at the last minute to placate anxious industry leaders, who fear higher energy costs will tilt competitiveness further in favour of China and India, which have no emissions limits, at a time of record oil prices.
EU Enterprise Commissioner Guenter Verheugen, standard-bearer of the interests of heavy industry, told German television: "I am all for setting an example for the rest of the world. But I am against committing economic suicide."
But the key features remained in place, including a major overhaul of the EU's flagship Emissions Trading System to cover more greenhouse gases beyond carbon dioxide (CO2) and involve all major industrial emitters.
The Commission's plans will implement renewable energy and emissions-cutting targets agreed by EU leaders last March, and require approval by member states and the European Parliament.
Resistance is expected over targets for each country to cut greenhouse gases and install renewable energy.
But the EU executive talked up potential business benefits.
Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the plan "gives Europe a head start in the race to create a low-carbon global economy that will unleash a wave of innovations and create new jobs in clean technologies."
From 2013, power generators will get fewer permits to emit carbon dioxide and have to buy them all. They will pass the extra electricity costs on to consumers, and those costs will rise as the supply of permits is tightened.
Until now utilities got most permits for free and derived huge windfall profits.
Power bills for industry and households will also rise as a result of targets to supply more energy using clean energy technologies which are more costly than fossil fuels.
Higher bills were an inevitable result of efforts to arrest global warming, the cief eecutive of the British arm of the German utility E.ON, Paul Golby, said yesterday.
"The time of a cheap energy world is over," he said.