‘Sham’ policy blamed for 1m tonne rise in gases

ENVIRONMENT Minister Dick Roche last night admitted he was worried by a one million tonne surge in the amount of greenhouse gases Ireland is pumping into the atmosphere.

However, Mr Roche dismissed claims by the Green Party that he is guilty of “crimes” against the planet, insisting the Government was battling to do its environmental duty while boosting the economy.

The minister claimed the delayed National Climate Change Plan had been put back to Easter due to the complexity of the Irish situation, not a lack of urgency.

Opposition leaders branded the Government’s environmental stance a “sham”, while a report by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) due out next week is believed to show the Republic’s carbon emissions have grown by nearly 2% to 70 million tonnes a year — the first increase since 2001.

“Of course it worries me and it means the challenge is even more difficult,” Mr Roche said.

The minister insisted the Government was on course to cut 15 million tonnes from the country’s output by 2012 — 11.4 million tonnes of which will come from cuts in transport, agriculture and other domestic users, with 3.4 million tonnes worth of credits being bought from Third World countries.

The level of emissions believed to be revealed by the EPA report would mean Ireland has the third highest rate of emissions per head of population in the world after the US and Luxembourg. The report is set to show carbon output 25% above 1990 levels.

Green Party leader Trevor Sargent said Ireland would “waste” at least €270m buying carbon credits which would be better used in education and health. He added the expected EPA findings revealed the Government’s “sham” attitude to the environment.

“The Government has been exposed entirely, like the emperor’s new clothes, that it just does not have any appreciation of the scale of the problem,” he said.

“The money they are going to spend on carbon credits could go into schools and hospitals — instead that money is being put aside to pay, essentially, for the crimes of this government.”

Mr Roche hit back saying the Greens would do immense damage to the economy and living standards if they imposed a carbon tax on petrol and domestic heating without making a significant contribution to cutting greenhouse gases.

The row follows last week’s UN report which predicted that unchecked global warming could leave Cork, Dublin, Galway and Limerick under water in 40 years’ time.

Parts of Mayo, Wexford, Cork Harbour, the Shannon Estuary, Tralee Bay and Castlemaine Harbour will disappear completely as record temperatures cause a rise in sea levels and increased coastal erosion, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said, while it announced there was compelling evidence that higher temperatures in past decades were driven by manmade and not natural causes.