Dan Neville (Limerick West, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on climate change. We all accept climate change is one of the greatest challenges to humanity in the medium to long term.

The Government's targets for reduction of emissions are way out of line with what they set. We have not heard today — in fairness, I have not heard all of the debate — that the Government has firm proposals to ensure our promised contribution will be achieved.

The Minister of State, Deputy Devins, will understand the value of €15 million and how hard it is to get that sum for projects, including his own in a previous life. The Government is spending €15 million on a public relations exercise to tell people to make changes while it has done substantially nothing about its massive carbon footprint in Civil Service buildings etc.

Total greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 were 69.77 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, which is 0.8% lower than the level of emissions in 2005. The slight decrease is mainly accredited to the temporary closure and generation reduction at Moneypoint power station due to maintenance and upgrading work. I impress on the Minister the need to continue the upgrading and improvement of Moneypoint. It directly affects my constituency of Limerick West because the prevailing winds pass over it. We have had problems. We can not say conclusively that these were due to emissions from Moneypoint but we believe they contributed in the Askeaton area. I urge the Government to ensure the ESB continues to upgrade Moneypoint to ensure it is environmentally friendly.

Under the Kyoto agreement, Ireland has committed to limiting the increase of greenhouse gases to 13% above its 1990 levels, a limit that must be reached during the period 2008-12. Current levels of Irish greenhouse gas emissions are more than 25% above the 1990 levels.

Ireland, unlike other EU countries, looks unlikely to reach the Kyoto targets. Other countries, such as the UK, Sweden and France, are already running ahead of their Kyoto targets. Germany, Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands all look like they will comfortably reach their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol. We hope the Government will ensure over the next number of years to alter its approach to the Kyoto Agreement and reach our targets as agreed.

The European Commission has set Ireland a challenging target to cut Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 in its new climate strategy. The EU has given Ireland the toughest individual target because of its prosperity and poor track record on cutting emissions, particularly transport emissions. While we welcome the changes on emissions in the last budget, they do not go far enough to achieve the objectives that the Government has set itself. In the response to the debate we would welcome details of how the Government will approach ensuring we reach the targets. However, Ireland will benefit from the upper cap, which restricts the maximum emissions cut demanded from a single EU state to 20% when compared to its emissions in 2005.

According to Harry McGee, in The Irish Times, the latest report on greenhouse emissions in the European Union shows Ireland is in the bottom half of the table of the 27 states in terms of meeting its Kyoto Protocol targets. Overall emissions fell by 14 million tonnes or 0.3%, and now stand at 7.7% below 1990 levels. In all, 5,142 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent were emitted in the 27 member states in 2006. The fall was even greater among the EU 15 — the 15 member states of the EU before the accession of the new member states in 2004 — which cut emissions by 35 million tonnes or 0.8%. The Irish figures for 2006 show a marginal decrease from the previous year of 0.6 million tonnes or 0.8%.

Irish emissions rose by 25.6% between 1990, the base year for Kyoto Protocol targets, and 2006, which is 12.6% above our target. Energy and agriculture remain the biggest factors in Ireland, though agricultural emissions have been declining considerably in line with the decline in the agricultural industry. The biggest problem within Ireland is the transport sector, to which I referred earlier, where emissions increased by 180% between 1990 and 2006. Year-on-year, emissions in transport increased a further 5.2% between 2005 and 2006.

It is generally acknowledged that Ireland's Kyoto Protocol targets were comparatively generous compared to other EU countries. However, it is lagging behind considerably countries such as the UK, Sweden and France, which are already running ahead of their Kyoto Protocol targets.

The reduction in countries such as Germany, Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands have been attributed to the use of technology and better efficiencies in power plants and heavy industry. In the UK, a major switch from oil and coal to gas in electricity production has also been a major factor. This brings me back to the issue of ensuring carbon efficiency at Moneypoint which I raised earlier.

Of the accession countries, all but Slovenia have achieved significant reductions, thanks to what the EEA describes as "the decline of energy-inefficient heavy industry". However, in a slightly worrying trend, most of those recorded small increases — a reversal of what was happening — in 2006.

Ireland is by no means the worst performer. We are one of the lowest performers, but Spain's emissions were 35% above its target in 2006. We must get perspective on the position in Europe. The other states with big gaps between emissions and goals were Luxembourg at29%, Austria at 28% and Denmark at 23%.

I referred to the €15 million which has been spent by the Government on its public relations exercise. The Minister of State, Deputy Devins, will be aware that €15 million is hard to come by. This €15 million of taxpayers' money, which is currently being spent on the climate change media campaign, is an enormous expense which follows money which had already been spent in that area. Fine Gael suggests that a large share of this money would be better spent on tangible products to help the environment such as home insulation schemes. A new home energy saving scheme was launched some time ago by the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources and will spend €5 million on improving home energy efficiencies via insulation. There are 1 million homes in the country requiring investment to improve energy efficiency, yet the Government sees fit to spend three times more on a media campaign designed to make it look good. I suggest the investment should be in real projects rather than public relations exercises.

See this speech in context