Government tinkering while the world warms - Emissions divy-up is €1.5 billion rip-off

Friends of the Earth likened the government's plans for the allocation of carbon emissions between big companies, published today, to "window dressing while your house is on fire".

Commenting, Friends of the Earth director, Oisin Coghlan, said:
"This plan covers only a third of Ireland's climate pollution and proposes to give away 94% of the emissions permits, hardly a roadmap to a low-carbon future. What about the other two-thirds of our climate pollution? What about areas like transport where emissions have risen 143% since 1990? The government has dropped the only big idea it had, the carbon tax, and stalled on even the small steps like reforming Motor Tax and VRT to reflect a car's carbon emissions."

The government has promised a public consultation on a revised National Climate Change Strategy. Now it transpires that when it submits today's plan for industry emissions to the EU in June it also has to outline what steps it will take to cut the other two-thirds of our climate pollution. So the consultation is likely to take place after the decisions are made.

"The reality is the government is doing the bare minimum the EU makes it do on climate change, and no more. They're showing no imagination, innovation or leadership. They're afraid to face up to the climate challenge, which is real and substantial. Ireland will have to reduce our pollution by at least 60% by 2050 to do our fair share to prevent global climate chaos," Mr Coghlan continued.

"We need a national conversation on climate and energy and we need blue-sky thinking. We must examine big ideas such as moving to a four-day working week with longer working days and making all public transport free. We need a paradigm shift in transport, energy, planning and housing but I'm afraid the government is only interested in tinkering at the edges and ticking boxes on EU forms," Mr Coghlan concluded.

Meanwhile under this draft plan big climate polluting businesses will pocket at least 1.5 billion euro worth of pollution permits for FREE, place a value on them for accounting purposes and, as if they had paid market value for them, pass the costs onto consumers.