Ireland among worst five in EU for failing to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions

IRELAND is one of just five EU countries that failed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the last 30 years.

While the EU as a whole has cut emissions by 23pc since 1990, Ireland’s have grown by 10pc – from 55.5 million tonnes to 61 million tonnes.

Each person in the EU now causes the emission of on average 8.9 tonnes of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in a year. In Ireland, the average is almost 13 tonnes.

All five of the countries whose emissions have grown since 1990 – Ireland, Austria, Cyprus, Portugal and Spain – have begun to reduce emissions but Ireland has made the smallest inroads, with the last annual reduction just 0.1pc.

Only the poor recent performance of six of our EU neighbours saves Ireland from having the worst record.

Belgium, Finland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta and Slovenia all increased emissions in the last annual count, although they are all still below their 1990 levels.

The EU’s annual inventory of emissions also shows that Ireland is the second-highest contributor of emissions from peat burning and the seventh highest contributor of agricultural emissions.

The inventory covers all 28 EU member states, including Britain, which will be excluded from the annual count at the end of this year.

Without Britain, which has achieved a 42pc drop in emissions over the period, largely due to the demise of the coal industry, the overall EU reduction would have been 20.7pc rather than 23pc.

The inventory has been submitted to the United Nations as part of preparations for what was meant to be a makeor-break international climate conference in November.

COP26 was to mark five years of the Paris Agreement and the start of increased ambition by the signatories to escalate action against global temperature rise and climate breakdown.

It was confirmed this week that the conference would now not take place until November 2021.

Ireland has agreed increased emissions reduction targets in principle but is struggling to set out the pathway to achieving them. To meet the targets requires a 7-8pc annual reduction over the next decade.

Fabian McGinty-O’Neill, of Extinction Rebellion, which staged a socially distanced protest outside the Dáil this week to remind parties in government-formation talks of the importance of keeping climate on the agenda, said the EU inventory only added to the urgency.

“We know we’re laggards in Europe but we also know we could become a leading example for small countries in tackling the climate crisis,” he said.

“The people of Ireland are behind that ambition. The recent opinion poll showed this to be the case. But they can only do so much as individuals. The big change has to come from policy that forces change in the big polluting industries.”

The opinion poll, carried out by Friends of the Earth, found that 92pc of people in Ireland wanted climate action policies guided by science, as was currently the case with the coronavirus response.

Scientists are warning that global temperature rise must be kept to a maximum of 1.5C if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate breakdown, which is already evident in extreme weather conditions and weather-related disasters in almost every part of the globe.