Climate change: Government is failing to make tough choices

Implementing tough climate change policies is a little like selling a pension policy to a 20-year-old. It makes sense but it seems so distant in time, and remote from the here and now, that it is easiest to put it all on the long-finger.

When Government ministers talk about climate change, you could almost imagine an “end is nigh” poster in the background. They seem to get the gravity of the situation and the urgency.

On budget day, Minister for Finance Michael Noonan described it, no less, as “the global challenge of this generation”.

However, when it comes to actual policy decisions, it becomes quickly apparent that perspiration does not match aspiration.

The Paris Agreement pledges – to contain rises in average global temperature from pre-industrial times to below 2 degrees , and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5 degrees – are accepted.

However, when you parse what the Irish Government is doing and plans to do, the gap begins to stretch to Grand Canyon proportions.

For one, successive governments want a special deal for agriculture – Ireland’s biggest CO2 emitter.

Enda Kenny and Ministers say Ireland has one of the most carbon efficient and greenest agriculture industries in the world (not quite true).

Though more efficient, dairy in particular is rapidly expanding. An increase of 13.2 per cent in milk production in 2015 has led to 7.7 per cent more emissions.

Overall, the picture is not promising. The latest Environmental Protection Agency emissions report shows all figures are going the wrong way.

Emissions in 2015 were 3.9 per cent higher than in 2014, with transport (4.2 per cent) and energy (5.4 per cent) both up. Ireland’s economic crisis since 2008 kept emissions down, not anything else.

Now a growing economy brings higher transport use (emissions from diesel cars increased by 11.2 per cent), the use of cheap coal (which recorded a whopping 19.6 per cent rise in greenhouse gas emissions) and increased production in commodities such as cement (up 13 per cent).

Fines of €6bn

There is no chance Ireland will meet its 2020 target of a 20 per cent reduction on 1990 levels. Instead, the fall is likely to be in the range of 6 to 11 per cent.

That could cost Ireland €6 billion in fines. It is likely that only one other EU country will join us in the offenders’ corner.

Even with generous concessions for the 2030 levels, they, too, will be a struggle too far. And as for the 2050 targets set out by domestic climate change and the Paris Agreement, they are already beginning to look out of reach.

The new Climate Change Advisory Council has said not meeting the 2020 targets is “a significant deviation from the necessary path to decarbonise the economy by 2050”.

Meeting such targets require fundamental change, involving a 5 per cent reduction every year between now and 2050. However, the pendulum is swinging the other way.

Economic growth has not been decoupled from emissions growth. The reality of that is that no policy instrument currently in place can curb emission growth, other than a scorched-earth recession.

Ireland’s collective style of government does not lend itself to tough measures, especially if they impact on vital sectors such as transport, agriculture and manufacturing.

Climate change was put to one side during the recession. The last national action plan was drawn up a decade ago and expired four years ago.

The new one (now called the National Mitigation Plan) will not be published until 2017.

Good progress has been made in renewable energy (which now comprises 23 per cent of electricity) and 330,000 houses have been retrofitted.

But many more expansive plans have come to naught, such as the plan to have 200,000 electric vehicles (EVs) on the road, or one million homes fully insulated by 2020.

Agriculture and transport

A little progress was achieved in the budget. Noonan extended relief for electric cars and introduced modest tax reliefs for natural gas vehicles, and for solid fuels partly made from biomass .

An additional €50 million capital spending was approved by Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohue to encourage renewable heating systems and better energy grants.

The fund to help farmers farm more efficiently – the Green Low-Carbon Agri-Environmental Scheme (Glas) – is being increased by €69 million to €211 million.

Minister Denis Naughten announced€24 million to expand energy efficiency programmes, and a €100 million spend on energy projects in 2017.

He said 25,000 homes would insulated in 2017 but that falls far short of the 75,000 needed each year to keep pace with targets.

Glas, backed by ambitious research by Teagasc, might make a difference, as might a new generation of animal feed. Meanwhile, Ministers hope that more forestry can held keep emissions down.

But with the expected growth in dairy between 2020 and 2025 there is no way existing emissions levels will not rise, irrespective of all efficiency efforts.

Nevertheless, agriculture will have to be carbon-neutral by 2050 if targets are to be met.

As for transport, Minister Shane Ross has yet to show his hand, though the department promises “wide-ranging” policies that will lead to behavioural change and more alternative fuels.

But the details have yet to be spelled out . That just does not apply to transport. Every department is in the same boat. Perhaps the draft of the National Mitigation Plan, due later this month, will finally answer all questions.

In the meantime, the Government remains in Hitchcockian mood: keeping everything in suspense.