Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 675: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he will provide figures on the impact of sugar beet growing on Ireland's net CO2 emissions; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6886/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Total emissions of CO2 from sugar production installations in Ireland in 2003, the latest year for which figures are available, were 146,834 tonnes.

Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 676: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government the area of forestry needed to be planted in order to counteract the total emissions from car use here in one year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6887/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Articles 3.3 and 3.4 of the Kyoto Protocol provide for parties to offset carbon sequestered by forests against their greenhouse gas emissions. Article 3.3 allows Kyoto Protocol parties to count net carbon sequestration from afforestation and deforestation since 1990, arising over the period covered by the protocol, 2008 to 2012.

In order to calculate sequestration levels from forests, the area of and species composition of afforestation must be estimated for each year. COFORD, the National Council for Forest Research and Development, has developed a model to predict carbon sequestration based on net forest area and a number of other factors such as growth increment, wood density, carbon content and biomass expansion factor, based on Irish research and the good practice guidance of the intergovernmental panel on climate change.

The COFORD model estimates that average annual sequestration over the period from 2008 to 2012 will be 2.074 million tonnes of CO2, based on an estimated 244,000 hectares of new forest planted over the period 1990 to date, and 14,000 hectares being planted per annum between now and 2012. Carbon sequestration in new forest is slow to begin with, but once the crop is fully established it rapidly increases year on year, to reach a peak over the period from ten to 30 years, depending on species and growth rate. On average, over that period, annual uptake, under Irish conditions, will be 10 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year.

In 2003, the latest year for which published figures are available, total emissions from road transport were 11.425 million tonnes of CO2. Figures for emissions by vehicle type are not available as emissions from road transport are calculated on the basis of fuel sold, rather than vehicle type. Given a level of sequestration of 10 tonnes of CO2 per hectare per year, more than 1.1 million hectares of forest would be required to offset Ireland's emissions of CO2 from road transport in 2003.