Emissions decision 'a licence to pollute'

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 CO ₂without 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 CO ₂emissions."

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 Timeslast night that it was "business as usual."

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