Hot air: report criticises Irish plan to buy carbon credits

IRELAND is investing in hot air rather than cleaning up its environment and helping in the fight against climate change, a new report says.

Some 12,000 energy-intensive plants across the EU are able to buy and sell permits to emit carbon dioxide covering about 40% of the EU’s total CO2 emissions.

Ireland is purchasing 95.5% of the 18 million tons of CO2 emissions it has pledged to reduce under the Kyoto agreement at a cost of €270 million.

Some of the money will buy carbon credits from eastern European countries, and Russia, but this will not reduce the amount of CO2 emissions.

These countries were given CO2 allowances but subsequently their heavy industries collapsed and emitted no further greenhouse gases.

Climate change expert with the World Wildlife Fund, Sanjeev Kumar, said: “This left these economies with a lot of permits, but essentially it is just hot air, as buying them results in no CO2 reductions.”

The majority of Ireland’s investment, however, will be in cheaper Clean Development Mechanism projects outside the EU, mainly in developing countries.

The report says it is seriously concerned about the quality and validity of many of these projects. It fears that the money will in fact lead to an increase in emissions from these plants.

“Instead of reducing carbon emissions and creating a more sustainable environment, companies included in the Emissions Trading Scheme are likely to purchase cheap external project credits that take investment out of the EU and sink them into potentially dubious Clean Development Mechanism projects.

The report’s authors analysed the carbon reduction plans of nine EU countries and found that 88%-100% of their combined emissions reductions targets under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme could be met by buying credits from outside the EU.

“This will mean that the scheme will fail to deliver real reductions in the EU,” said Mr Kumar.

Environment Minister Dick Roche has defended the Government decision to purchase all but 600,000 tons of CO2 up to 2012 on the basis that Irish industry — mainly energy generation and cement production — could not afford to do it any other way.