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Why are we stuck with CO2 emissions for oil we use and beef we sell abroad?

Sam Russell

We burn oil in cars buses and trucks, and energy we generate for electricity. These are counted as CO2 emissions. We need to reduce them. OK

We keep millions of dairy and beef animals to produce food that we export 90% of to the rest of the world. These produce CO2 emissions, and we need to reduce them.

Hang on a minute, is there not double counting going on here.

Why is it that the OPEC countries do not get stuck with the CO2 their oil and gas generates, but we get stuck with that CO2, and also the CO2 generated to give the the butter, cheese and beef the OPEC guys consume for their dinner?

Now we never had the heavy industry like coal and steel that did most of the damage in the past, so we are reducing from a low base, and we must also cope with this double counting.

This needs sorting out.

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Ash.J.Williams

it's nonsence that we seem to have a guily concience over the damage done over the years and nonsence that our government are pushing this guilt on us

it's the greens that have us driving so many diesels

Sam Russell

The Greens never got anyone to drive a diesel - the Greens wanted you to take PT, ride a bike or walk.

MrMusician18

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058255345/why-are-we-stuck-with-co2-emissions-for-oil-we-use-and-beef-we-sell-abroad

Emissions are counted at the point CO2 enters the atmosphere. Apart from international transport - I'm not sure where they are counted.

If we were to try and change the system so that CO2 was counted where goods were consumed, we would likely have higher emissions as the manufacturing nations would transfer to us.

In any case, the point is reducing the emissions where they are generated. If we start allocating Chinese emissions to Ireland for example, there is little way for us to influence reductions in their processes.

Sam Russell

My point is that basically using 'reduction' as the metric unfairly passes the burden to those whose consumption historically was always less, while those who polluted greatly still pollute greatly, although maybe less than they did.

PlasticPatrick

The beef herd is firmly in the environmentalists sights, they are coming for it.

Just cast your eyes over to the very much under publicised farmer protests that are going on in Holland at the moment, that will give you a glimpse of what is about to happen in Ireland.

Due to the gas shortage, coal and heavy oil electricity generation plants are being use again, the extra carbon will have to be offset, farming is the easy target.

Meanwhile China and India are opening coal fired plants for fun and their emissions are on a vertical trajectory.

There may be trouble ahead.

Yellow_Fern

Ireland's emissions have been dropping for years, China's are still rising. In 2019 they exceeded ours.

KildareP

Same reason as China is called out as being heavy polluters despite the vast majority of the west having outsourced energy intensive manufacturing and production there. We own the end product but aren't happy to own the pollution that went into producing it and shipping it halfway across the planet.

If counting of CO2 emissions was done at the end user level, then sure, our agri figures in Ireland would drop quite significantly, but I would hazard a guess it would be far outweighed once all of our Made in China goods that come into Ireland were counted under Ireland instead of being lumped in as "China".

OK - so we can't directly control how willing or not China is to be as efficient and environmentally friendly as possible.

However the EU are moving towards carbon borders - so they will start to apply carbon tax on products imported from outside the EU based on how clean or dirty the manufacturing process was to produce that product. As per the article they're starting with the most energy intensive products like steel, aluminium and fertiliser to begin with:

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/eu-countries-back-plan-world-first-carbon-border-tariff-2022-03-15

There's a simple reason why mass manufacturing has largely been sent to China across the board throughout the west - it's cheaper, much cheaper, than it is to produce it ourselves (collective "we" being the entire western world) without breaching one or more of our domestic regulations like environmental law, employment law, minimum wage, worker conditions, health and safety, etc.

Unfortunately that means the price of those products which use China as a source for materials at any point along the product's manufacturing cycle will ultimately rise, perhaps significantly, because we will either have to pay a significant carbox tax, or because the cost for China to produce it using cleaner methods costs them more to produce it and they'll naturally pass those costs along. At some point it may then become more cost effective overall for us to start producing those products domestically again.

Are people going to accept paying more in the name of being green?

peter kern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119365330#Comment_119365330

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC

what do you think is a country with a low historical consumption .

afghanistan i guess would be a good start or what did you have in mind.

PlasticPatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119371093#Comment_119371093

"OK - so we can't directly control how willing or not China is to be as efficient and environmentally friendly as possible."

But yes we can control how they produce it by simply not buying it or reducing what we buy.

Your average environmental activist is big on ideas but short on personal individual action, take the eejit that heads up "insulate Britain" who admits he hasn't insulated his own home but is blocking roads and motorways to make the state do it for him.

Then there is the usual virtue signallers who march and campaign but take the latest iphone or android each year, run diesel cars, have several foreign holidays a year and have wardrobes full of clothes purchased from Penneys\Primark a fair proportion of which they will either wear once or never wear at all.

peter kern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119371842#Comment_119371842

while many here try to point the finger at other nations the co2 emission per capita is pretty much the same in ireland and china so we cant just blame china for having the same level as Ireland.

i think 1 Irish person s co2 footprint is 165 people in burkina faso . and maybe it would change slightly if we use other calculations ie what people actually use but its very unlikely to be less than 100 times more which is pretty crazy at the same time hardly anybody flies in burkina faso or has a car , aircom or heating

PlasticPatrick

Yes per capita they are close but just look at the trajectory of each country, whilst China is ramping up C02 production rapidly, Ireland is going very much in the opposite direction. As the Chinese open more and more coal power stations the differential will be clear.

The next steps to reduce Ireland's C02 will be painful, the beef herd and farmers will come under attack, once again look to Holland and even Sri Lanka if you want to see the results of the push for low carbon in agriculture, protests, bankruptcy and civil unrest.

Sam Russell

Climate change due to human activity is a huge problem for humanity. Of that there is no doubt anymore - it is just the solution that is beyond us.

Population growth is also a huge problem for humanity. Just for reference - 1800 world population was about 1 billion, 1900 - about 1.7 billion, 2000 - about 6.1 billion, and 2100 - estimated to be about 12 billion. Obviously, these figures are between estimates and best guesses. With this growth in human populations, any attempt at controlling CO2 is going to fail spectacularly unless the population growth is brought under control.

And here in Ireland, we are worried about the size of the national herd.

Meanwhile, famine, poverty, disease, and war (causing famine, poverty, and disease) - all contribute to huge global problems for humanity. More solutions that are beyond us.

techman1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119373147#Comment_119373147

But the biggest contributors to CO2 emissions are not cows but people, therefore countries with large dense populations actually get rewarded in the current Carbon counting system and countries that have low population densities but produce lots of natural resources like Canada, Australia and to a lesser extent Ireland get punished because the producers are punished not the consumers.

For example if Ireland was to double its population there would be huge increases in total Carbon emissions but our pe r Capita emissions would reduce and we would be then be regarded as a low emission country. This shows how preposterous and political the whole carbon counting system is and why total Carbon emissions will continue to rise

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119364730#Comment_119364730

PT Cruiser?

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376746#Comment_119376746

Public Transport Cruiser - known by most as a bus or train.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376207#Comment_119376207

China is a massive outlier. They could put a big dent in their emissions by quenching a few coal seam fires that are just burning away not benefiting anyone

VinLieger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376578#Comment_119376578

Actually there are new estimates that we are going to reaach a peak population of around 10.4 billion between 2050 and 2080 and it will start shrinking from then on thanks to global declining birth rates. In fact its going to take us at least twice as long to get from 8-10 billion than it did from 6-8.

This is going to bring with it completely different problems for climate change beyond a constantly increasing population though as we will have a globally aging population requiring more and more care from an ever diminishing younger population.

peter kern

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119376207#Comment_119376207

again its always easy to point the finger at other countries we are reducing from a extremely hight level both Ireland and china are very bad i think this is the key message.

https://www.epa.ie/our-services/monitoring--assessment/climate-change/ghg/latest-emissions-data/

transport is the biggest increase in the last 30 years

why cant we walk to the supermarket or want to do the school run with a suv .

what is the problem to wear a jacket at home and office in the winter . there is so much we can do before we should point the finger at others

sorry sri lanka has very different issues and you can not fix that just on one issue

could you filll me in where holland has civil unrest , bankruptcy and mass protests

peter kern

how do densly populated countries get rewarded ... if i look at the netherlands they are super densely populated ie the most densely populated country in eu they are doing worse than Ireland at 8.8 metric tons per capita prob one of the 3 worst in eu. luxemburg is 15 metric tons per capita

in Ireland if we had double the population and the same agriculture and animal stock the co2 per capita would be reduced by 18.7 en percent more or less , that would not make ireland a low emission country , that would leave ireland at about 6 metric tons per capita the world average is 4.5

i do agree the footprint should be more consume focused, but then this of course this would lower chinas output massively as well . since they are the fabric of the world and i guess would then also add to Irelands footprint , as a high consumption country.

at the end of the day i think there is no real way to make Ireland be a bellow world average polluter right now which ever way you calculate it , not even close at the moment. even if we take out all agriculture and lifestock we would still be 5 metric tonnes ie still above world average.

PlasticPatrick

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119394729#Comment_119394729

Have you not seen the farmer protests in Holland?

Basically they have told the farmers that they have to massively reduce the amount of fertiliser use to cut nitrogen emissions, the resultant and ongoing protests saw live ammunition warning shots being fired at the protesters.

That's a taster of civil unrest for starters.

Then there's Sri lanka, where they banned the use of fertilisers overnight, again results were crop failure, hunger, farmers going out of business and yes civil unrest.

Meanwhile if you look at the targets at COP26, methane reduction was high on the agenda and yes China, India and Russia refused to sign up, but hey Ireland are looking to reduce the herd.

https://cdn-i--scmp-com.cdn.ampproject.org/i/s/cdn.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/768x768/public/d8/images/methode/2021/11/04/14c7fe08-3cca-11ec-a1b3-e785d5c8830c_image_hires_211439.jpg?itok=tx-rJlm5&v=1636031688

Sam Russell

Farmers protesting? That must be a new thing - or maybe it is just the usual protests.

Why did the farmers block the city centre with their tractors the last time? Cannot remember, but it was over something. Farmers have been protesting since forever - usually for bigger handouts from the Gov.

Nothing changes. I remember an RTE film crew came under attack from the protesting farmers in Cork when they started showing all the expensive Mercedes Benz cars the protesting farmers came in. I do not understand why that angered the protesting farmers, but there you go.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119402211#Comment_119402211

Bit biased/one sided in fairness?????.......not all farmers agreed with the last protest, some thought it was ham-fisted and wouldn't work.....some of those wouldnt necessarily disagree with the reasons for the protest however....

It was essentially about the level of control processors had on the price of beef etc...........it didn't go to plan (no pun intended), misguided perhaps but not necessarily unwarranted imo.

Further protests at the direction this is headed in/way farmers are being villified etc aren't necessarily unjustified either imo, I'm sure RTE will pick un unrepresentative sample for their coverage and ignore any real and potentially justified concerns the average farmer may have however....it doesn't help that most of the spokespeople on the farming side are god awful at representing genuine issues/debating/getting counterpoints across

For many protest(s) would be genuinely about trying to leave their business viable, fighting for what they see as their and their families future...as to the way emissions are being calculated and what is not being factored in......its not nearly as transparent as it should be imo and there seem to be a lot of omissions/narrow focus to what is going on at the moment if you ask me......with no explanation/reasoning given beyond words like "efficiency"......

I say this in relation to the minister, teagasc etc etc.....

I'd certainly love to get a proper explanation to the direction things are headed in and the wisdom/fairness of the current course...

I'm also a bit sick that most of the same numpties that caused the problem in agriculture (with policies etc in the very recent past) seem to be now balls deep in "solving" it with no repercussions/consequences for their monumental (in the context of the climate emergency) **** ups in the past ....

If they got it so wrong back then (because imo they were in bed with the industry lobby) how can they be trusted to do it right now when they are probably still in bed with them.....I think farmers would be right to be very wary and should be willing to protest for some level of fair play............

Sam Russell

@amacca

Farmers have every right to protest, but they should realise that protesting can be counterproductive.

It took only one farmer in 2001 to import F&M disease into Ireland by importing an infected animal illegally. Fortunately, the nation acted as a nation, at great cost, to keep the outbreak in control. Likewise, Covid19 was fought be the whole world, accepting privations stoically, and the fight goes on, but the threat has been kept at bay, although many people have perished.

This climate emergency requires the nation (and the world) to act in unison because the unfolding disaster will only get worse even if the actions proposed are successful because much of the damage has already occurred. The best we can hope for is mitigation.

I only hope the farmers treat the 25% cut in the way most drivers treat speed limits - that is they exceed them with abandon, treating them as a target, not a limit.

To get to the cuts in emissions to work requires many many diverse actions - let us hope we all take those many actions individually as well as a nation.

amacca

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119406962#Comment_119406962

I find it hard to disagree, but I do have a sneaking suspicion some of the proposed measures being talked about will be counterproductive too (at least in terms of GHG emissions)...and will drive consolidation and smaller operators out....I think a just transition (if there could be one) would be incentivising more extensive production....some of the stuff being talked about looks more like favouring larger intensive factory style operations (to my mind at least)

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119364730#Comment_119364730

This must be the latest effort to try make people forget how wrong they got the whole diesel car thing.

Sam Russell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119407995#Comment_119407995

It was not the Green Party that caused the likes of VW to stop selling petrol cars above a Golf size. I wanted to buy a petrol Tiguan a few years ago - but they do not sell them in Ireland.

Suddenly, the car companies stopped selling larger petrol cars - only diesel.

The change in tax for cars happened in 2007 - fifteen years ago. Who was to know at the time that VW (and other car companies) fiddled the basis for GHG emissions. It is not the Green Party who are responsible for the criminal behaviour of car companies, no more than they were for the irresponsible and probably criminal behaviour of the banks that caused the financial crash in 2008.

Even if the GP did get it wrong about diesel (actually it was based on fuel consumption - not use of diesel), the subsequent governments did nothing to correct it, and if they did, there would have been an outcry if the lower rates of motor tax was reversed.

[By the way, I have nothing to do with the Green Party or with any political party.]

mickdw

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119408462#Comment_119408462

Ffs, why do you think the car makers no longer offered petrol versions here, it was the co2 tax policy Introduced by the greens which made diesel car cheaper than petrol cars to buy here. This was a switch of the previous situation where a diesel was more expensive but cheaper to run. After 08, the option was a petrol which was dearer to buy, dearer to fuel and dearer to tax or a diesel - and you say the greens didn't do it?

You are not correct to bring the emissions fraud into it. The greens considered only co2 as a basis for motortax. They completely ignored the cancer causing emissions which were always higher in diesel engines but of course green policy was all about co2 and didn't know about polluting cities with Cancer causing emissions.

The emissions cheat was not across all makes and everyone was aware of the fact that diesels were not clean.

The greens got it wrong and force people's hands in car buying choice.

To say that the big bad car manufacturers just happened to stop selling petrols here is the funniest thing I've read here in a while.

Mecanudo

Sam Russell

The change to Motor Tax and VRT took effect from 2008 - that is fourteen years ago. No Gov since has seen the error of that decision and chosen to reverse or revise it. The basic decision was taken by the Gov of the day of which the GP were a minority.

The emission figures from all motor manufacturers were fraudulent at the time, using every trick they could to reduce the measurement - by, for example, taping across the panel gaps, omitting the alternator during tests, and other actions we do not know about, etc. VW went as far as to 'adjust' the software to behave differently if it detected it was under test. Maybe other manufacturers did the same.

As a result of the above, the emission figures are now calculated by real use measurements so fiddling the numbers is not going to work.

It was possible to buy the Seat version of the Tiguan in petrol but not a VW one. VW (Ireland) do not offer their larger cars in Petrol in Ireland, but they are available in other markets. It was the motor manufacturers that stopped selling larger sized petrol cars and left little choice for those for whom a diesel car was wholly inappropriate - such as urban short distance driving patterns. They should have warned purchasers that diesel was a bad choice for that style of use.

VRT now takes NOx into account, so some changes have come into effect.

mickdw

The petrol cars disappeared here completely and utterly due to the 2008 taxation change.

Manufacturers will offer whatever will sell in suitable numbers. A manufacturer / distributor would be foolish to offer stuff that only 1 in 100 might want so there was no point in offering petrol version due to the tax position which made the diesel cheaper to buy and cheaper to tax. It's that simple.

You further contradict yourself when stating that no change has taken place since while you acknowledge that we now have nox tax which rightly penalises emissions from dangerous gases. That quite a big change in the system.

Of course it's no surprise that a party who favour bicycles might not be up to speed on vehicle emissions but even looking back at this distance time, green party supporters cannot admit that they got this completely and utterly wrong. Of course to admit that the green party might know feck all about what they are legislating for might be enough for more people to question what they preach and really we couldn't have that.

It was also a scandal at the time how peoples existing cars were devalued overnight due to their nonsense policy. An 07 registered 520d bmw for example was 600 plus euro, with the identical car on an 08 plate being 150 to tax. The 07 became sale proof.