Little enthusiasm generated for energy tax

SWITCHING taxation from income to energy, as recommended in a recent ESRI study, does not feature among the pledges made in the Joint Programme for Government agreed by Fianna Fail and the PDs. Indeed, it does not even mention the phrase "sustainable development".

However, Fianna Fail's policy document on the environment, issued before the general election, does contain objectives to "reduce energy usage throughout the Irish economy" and to "reduce carbon-dioxide emissions to 1990 levels", although it does not specify a deadline.

The former government's Strategy for Sustainable Development, published in April, goes further by setting a very ambitious target to limit CO2 emissions - the principal cause of climate change - to a 15 per cent increase on 1990 levels by the year 2010.

If this is to be achieved, it will require far-reaching changes: improved energy efficiency in buildings (including houses), more fuel- efficient vehicles, and measures to reduce emissions from industry and electricity generating plants.

Last month Earthwatch high-lighted the link between Ireland's economic boom and its increasing CO2 emissions by calling on the EST to withdraw its current "Celtic Tiger" advertisement, the one which asks: "Where does Ireland's economy get its energy?"

According to Ms Sadhbh O'Neill, of Earthwatch, Ireland gets its energy from burning fossil fuels in power plants which create the bulk of its emissions of carbon, sulphur and nitrogen dioxides.

In a letter to the ESB she said the current campaign was a "celebration" of its own "wasteful and polluting technologies", based on the notion that increased energy consumption equalled economic growth, which was "totally at odds with the principle of sustainability".

Ms O'Neill said the onus was on the world's industrialised countries to demonstrate that it was possible to have development and economic growth without disrupting the ecological balance.

With Ireland's CO2 emissions now at least 10 per cent above the 1990 level and energy production rising by 7 per cent a year, Earthwatch said the ESB should "take on the challenge of convincing energy-users to reduce their consumption by a minimum of 10 per cent over the next five years".

A spokesman for the ESB defended the board's record and its current campaign. Since 1991, he said, a "highly-effective demand side management programme" had resulted in a cumulative saving of 620,000 tonnes a year in Ireland's CO2 emissions, equivalent to about 10 per cent of the total.

He also pointed out that the ESB was playing a leading role in gas- turbine technology and in the Government's alternative energy programme, which aims to generate 10 per cent of Ireland's electricity demand from sources such as wind power by the year 2000.

It seems unlikely that these measures alone will be sufficient to contain the rapid growth in CO2 emissions. But whether the new Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, can be convinced of the need to impose energy taxes to cut over-consumption is very much an open question.