[Article] Emissions decision 'a licence to pollute'

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/2488464?view=Eircomnet

Emissions decision 'a licence to pollute'
From:ireland.com
Friday, 6th February, 2004

The Green Party has condemned last night's announcement that the State's biggest industries will not have to cut existing levels of carbon dioxide emission under Kyoto Treaty.

The party said the targets is proof the Government intends giving large industrial companies "a free licence to continue polluting the atmosphere".

Under the pilot scheme to run from 2005 to 2007, the 100 biggest Irish companies will be able to produce 22.5 million tonnes of CO2 without suffering any penalty - 0.2m tonnes more than they do now.

The Minister for the Enviroment, Mr Cullen, ruled the companies should get licences to cover "an estimated 96 per cent to 98 per cent" of their expected emissions between 2005 and 2007.

The Green Party's Enterprise, Trade and Employment spokesman, Mr Eamon Ryan said this afternoon that householders and the service sector would pay dearly now that the Government "has decided to excuse Ireland's heavy industry from any climate change obligations".

"It is increasingly clear," Mr Ryan said, "that the Government is happy to see pollution from the two biggest sectors - transport and industry continue to grow unchecked. If Ireland is to meet its Kyoto commitments then this cost will have to be borne by Irish householders and the service sector, who are the remaining smaller source of CO2 emissions."

Mr Ryan said membership of the new European Union emissions trading system would exempt the large industrial companies from having to pay any new carbon tax and said the real inequity would be that the State's heavy industry sector "received their quota for the trading system absolutely free".

"The only flexibility the Government had to encourage these companies to reduce their emissions was to allocate them a quota below their current emissions level. Extraordinarily, the Government have now decided to give them an entitlement which will be actually greater than their current use," he said.

Pleasantly surprised by the decision, one industry figure who has closely watched the preparation of the decision told The Irish Times last night that it was "business as usual."

Major companies, including the ESB, Cement Roadstone and Aughinish Alumina, are affected by the decision.

Capt'n Midnight

22.5m tonnes ?

That's 5 tonnes for each of us, and us punters are supposed to modify our lifestyles to balance it out.

BTW:Shouldn't that read
Major companies, including the ESB, Cement Roadstone and Aughinish Alumina, are unaffected by the decision.

Victor

http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/topstories/2604151?view=Eircomnet

ESB to benefit most from CO2 emissions plan
From:ireland.com
Tuesday, 24th February, 2004

The ESB and Cement Roadstone Holdings are the biggest beneficiaries of a draft allocation plan for carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions published yesterday by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

Electricity generation accounts for two-thirds of the available national allowances - set at 22.5 million tonnes - for an EU carbon trading regime due to start on January 1st next with the aim of reducing emissions.

Critics immediately warned that ordinary taxpayers would be left to foot the bill, likely to be at least €300 million a year, for Ireland's continuing failure to achieve its target under the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change.

The ESB's total allocation exceeds 11 million tonnes per annum, while a further 2.7 million tonnes has been allocated to independent electricity generators such as Huntstown Power, near Mulhuddart, in northwest Dublin. The coal-fired power plant at Moneypoint, on the Shannon Estuary, has been allocated 4.4 million tonnes of CO2 for each of the next three years, though this is less than its recent annual emissions of 5.9 million tonnes. Underlining the carbon-intensive nature of traditional cement production, Cement Roadstone Holdings' is being permitted to emit nearly 2.4 million tonnes of CO2 from its four plants, the largest one at Platin, near Drogheda.

Two other traditional cement manufacturers, Quinn Cement near Ballyconnell, Co Cavan, and Lagan Cement, near Kinnegad, Co Westmeath, have been given allowances of 849,000 tonnes and 374,000 tonnes respectively.

Mr Donal O'Riain, group managing director of Ecocem, which manufactures cement without emitting CO2, said any burden on the economy could be significantly reduced by using more "environmentally friendly cement".

The EPA's allowances are in line with a recent announcement by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, that the Government had decided to give the industrial sector free CO2 allowances equivalent to its current emissions. The draft National Allocation Plan published yesterday sets out the EPA's proposals for distributing these allowances, based on what it described as a "robust analysis" of the various sectors and installations included.

This analysis, carried out by Indecon economic consultants and ENVIROS consulting, focused both on CO2 emissions and also on the costs faced by participants in making the reductions required to meet the terms of the Kyoto protocol.

Dr Mary Kelly, EPA's director general, said full recognition had been given to the role of renewables in electricity generation and there would also be dedicated allowances for more efficient combined heat and power (CHP) plants. "Global warming is a long-term problem that requires a long term strategic global response. The allocation process proposed by the EPA will reduce harmful emissions by establishing a price for carbon dioxide," she said.

It would also help to reduce CO2 emissions by encouraging the development of renewable energy and CHP and by making processes which emit large amounts of carbon dioxide "prohibitively expensive".

The EU directive on compliance with Kyoto targets requires that companies be issued with a cap on the amount of CO2 they are allowed to emit; if this is exceeded, they would have to purchase allowances from others.

Friends of the Irish Environment said the draft plan had merely confirmed the Government's intention to allocate free emissions trading rights to industry while funding part of the shortfall by purchasing emission credits with taxpayers' money.