Government needs to act over failure to cut greenhouse gasses

THE Government’s Green Paper on Energy Policy in Ireland, which is out to public consultation until the end of July, reads like a manuscript from the past discovered during an archaeological dig.

Who is this Minister Rabbitte smiling up from the introduction of a document which talks about “transforming Ireland into one of the most energy efficient economies in Europe by 2020?”

As Rabbitte himself prepares to hop to another hutch, many of the claims of the energy paper have already been discredited. The “National Low Carbon Roadmap” which is meant to magically reduce Ireland’s carbon emissions by 80% to 95% by 2050 is years off schedule and will seemingly have no targets except for 2050 when everyone in positions of power in this government may be dead and gone.

And while there is much posturing in the paper about the impact of home retrofits on energy consumption, with SEAI’s figures showing energy consumption per household dropping by 18% between 2006 and 2011, the rate of retro-fitting has halved in the three years this government has been in power. The Environmental Protection Agency predicts that energy efficiency in houses may be just 5% better by 2020 if no additional measures are taken.

The need for “grid-strengthening and reinforcement” is highlighted but opposition to pylons seems a bit understated in the expression, “such infrastructure has proved divisive in the past, with communities and developers finding themselves in opposition” because there is no indication the present or future will be any different. And the commitment to explore the export of renewable energy to the UK looks out of date considering the collapse of recent negotiations on the issue between the two governments.

While the Green Paper highlights the changes in VRT to reflect the emission rates of vehicles and highlights the fact that the CO2 emissions of new private cars fell by 22% from 2008 to 2011, it does not say that the current government has diluted the measure. And while the paper calls for “carbon capture and storage” to be explored if coal-fired energy generation is to continue at Moneypoint, the EPA takes the view that this is not going to happen and has adjusted its greenhouse gas projections for Ireland until 2020 accordingly.

These projections, published by the EPA this week, are a damning indictment of our response to the threat of climate change. While the Green Paper whistles a happy tune, the EPA’s projections say we will breach the EU’s legally binding targets for greenhouse gas emission reduction in that much-trumpeted date of 1916 and face massive fines.

While cows and cars are the main culprits in our greenhouse gas emission crime, it is hard to believe that the Government is even trying to reduce our emissions when you see the buildings they themselves control gaily burning our money to pump pollution into the atmosphere.

What’s most frustrating about this is that simple behaviour change can lead to energy savings of up to 20% as an Office of Public Works pilot project has shown. Now the OPW is partnering with Tallaght Hospital to reduce energy use by 18% over three years with a target saving of €4.3 million, enough to fund 18 acute hospital beds.

I suppose the reason the Public Accounts Committee has never taken an interest in the scandalous waste of energy in public buildings is that there is no easily identifiable “baddie” to haul in for questioning. The issue has been left to a tiny group of volunteers, Dublin Friends of the Earth, and they got their first hearing in the Dáil yesterday when they addressed the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Social Protection.

The National Energy Efficiency Action Plan (2013) has a target of 33% reduction in energy use in public buildings by 2020, to show the rest of us in our bog-standard houses how it’s done.

But while the Green Paper says the Sustainable Energy Association of Ireland has signed partnerships with bodies and agencies which account for more than 60% of the public sector energy spend, DFOE reports that we have no national data for energy use in the public sector for the last three years and therefore no idea whether use is decreasing or increasing. Not even the figures for 2011, the first year in which reporting energy use became a legal requirement for public bodies, have been published, although SEAI told DFOE this February that the report was with the designers.

You would never think we were attempting to emerge from a serious recession which has hammered public services from the way we burn energy in our public buildings.

This is perhaps most clearly shown in the case of our schools who pay for their energy use out of that precious capitation grant for each pupil which has recently been cut by 3.5%.

A quarter to a third of this scarce resource is spent on energy in our 4,000-plus schools, and this adds up to between €50 million and €80m a year. And yet the Government has not required schools to demonstrate any effort to save energy. The Department’s position is that it is up to school boards what they do with their money.

The most it has done is partner with SEAI to produce a website, www.energyineducation.ie, but they neglected to tell the schools about it so it is hardly surprising that only 6% of schools have engaged with it.

The depressing thing about all of this is that cutting energy use through behaviour change is relatively easy and close to cost-free. Under the guidance of An Taisce’s Green Schools initiative, some schools have reported massive savings from simple behaviour change, such as the special school in Co. Wicklow with 20 pupils who saved €4,000 by switching off equipment after school, removing electric heaters and opening blinds; or the secondary school in Mayo which saved €10,000 by turning off the electricity at night, putting timers on PCs and using energy efficient lighting.

By 2016 Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil might have finally called off the Civil War or Sinn Féin might be in power on both sides of the border. But it will also be remembered as the year in which we break our legal commitments to the EU on greenhouse gas emissions and officially become climate criminals.

We will threaten our economic survival, not to mention our future on the planet, if we don’t see 2016 as a wake-up call to radicaly reduce emissions by 2020, 2030 and beyond. And that should start today with a plan to stop blowing good money through the roof of public buildings.