Ireland will have a lot of explaining to do in terms of its emissions levels at the next UN conference on climate change in Bali, according to a global warming awareness group. Fiona Gartlandreports.
Speaking at an information session on global warming to mark the second anniversary yesterday of the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol, Pat Finnegan, co-ordinator of Grian, said that emission figures released by the Environmental Protection Agency, which showed a jump of 1.7 per cent, were a "kick in the face for our legally-binding commitments under both the UN climate convention and the protocol".
Ireland's emissions were 25.4 per cent above 1990 levels in 2005, 12 percentage points ahead of the Kyoto target of 13 per cent above 1990 levels, according to the EPA figures. The Government plans to spend €270 million on carbon credits abroad to meet the targets.
"Irish emissions are now heading upwards by almost 2 per cent per year, at precisely the same rate they should be heading downwards," Mr Finnegan said.
"Even worse, this is merely the start of a predicted trend that will carry on at this rate all the way out to the end of the current Kyoto period in 2012, and beyond, unless urgent action is taken by the Government."
He said that the Minister for the Environment would have to persuade developing countries at the conference that buying carbon credits to meet 60-70 per cent of our Kyoto target was acceptable.
"Ireland is really in a bad position," he said. Carbon credits were designed to be supplemental to domestic action, not central to it.
He also said that the Bali conference would be "last orders" for the climate. "It takes a minimum of four years to agree a protocol and it is essential that one is put in place. Minimal first-round cuts only extend to December 31st, 2012."
Mr Finnegan reiterated what Kofi Annan had stated at the conclusion of the world summit on sustainable development in 2002. "The real problem is politicians work on a five-year cycle. Nature does not work like that."
Grian will continue to mark the second anniversary of the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol today with a series of three tutorials on climate change at Enfo, St Andrew's Street, Dublin 2.