Ireland exceeds quota for harmful emissions

Ireland has emerged among a small number of European states which exceeded quotas for production of harmful CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions, EU figures have confirmed.

The figures are in the results of the first year of emissions monitoring and trading, which were released by the European Commission yesterday.

Of the 25 countries in the EU, only Austria, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and the UK breached their annual allowances for the production of CO2 gases.

However, the EU Commission noted that Ireland was 100 per cent compliant in its reporting standards - among just five other compliant states - and acknowledged that allowance levels for other states may have been set too high.

Overall, the EU produced less harmful CO2 emissions at 1.785 billion tonnes than the level of allowances, at 1.829 billion tonnes, which it had awarded itself.

The figures do not, however, take account of four member states: Cyprus, Malta, Luxembourg and Poland which have not yet implemented their registration schemes and so emissions data for these countries were not available.

The EU also noted that due to technical problems in the national registries of the Czech Republic, France, the Slovak Republic and Spain, the commission did not receive wholly reliable information from these states.

A commission spokeswoman in Brussels told The Irish Times that while there were difficulties, the first year of verifiable results would form a good basis on which to set member states' forthcoming Kyoto targets.

She said that while Ireland had exceeded its annual average quota of 19,238,190 tonnes of CO2, producing 22,397,678 tonnes, "there would now be an incentive to cut emissions in Ireland. Whereas in the other countries the incentive is not so marked."

She explained the complex system was aimed at forcing states which were not within their allocation, such as Ireland, to buy extra credit on the open emissions trading market. "This should be expensive for business so it would be cheaper for them to reduce emissions."

In this way, she said, the trading scheme was working in the way it was intended in relation to Ireland.

She said the figures appeared to indicate that other states may have been given too high a quota. She said many industrial states may have exaggerated their need for allowances.

"If a state has, and I am making these figures up for example, a 10,000 tonnes production of CO2, then we should give them probably an allowance of 8,000 tonnes and they will strive to reduce their emissions rather than pay a fine. This is the way it should be working."

Among the states which produced less CO2 than their quotas were Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Portugal, the Slovak Republic and Sweden.

Throughout the EU some 9,400 CO2 emitting businesses were covered by the trading scheme, the largest number being in Germany which had 1,842.