Olwyn Enright (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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Question 70: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government if he envisages a more comprehensive carbon budget for budget 2009 that will expand on a speech and a press release that comprised the carbon budget for budget 2008; if such a carbon budget will be communicated by the Minister for Finance alongside the financial budget as was promised for budget 2008; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35233/07]

John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)
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I was pleased to be able to present Ireland's first ever carbon budget on 6 December. Its purpose is to show how Government decisions on spending and taxation measures affect Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions, to demonstrate that Government decisions on climate change are consistent with overall economic and budgetary policy and to give a clear indication of the progress that is being made each year towards meeting both Ireland's Kyoto Protocol target and the Government's national target to reduce emissions by an average of 3% per annum.

In this context, the Programme for Government indicates that the role of the Minister for Finance is to present an outline carbon report. In fulfilling this commitment, Deputies will be aware that in his recent Budget statement, the Minister for Finance presented an outline of Ireland's emissions profile and detailed the measures being introduced in the Budget to reduce greenhouse gas emission levels.

In this year's carbon budget, I presented:

preliminary emissions figures for 2006;

projected emissions for the 2008-12 Kyoto Protocol period, taking account of the measures in the National Climate Change Strategy published in April 2007;

the effects of the additional measures put in place since then; and

updated projected emissions to take account of these measures.

As the question anticipates, future carbon budgets will be more detailed.

In addition to domestic emissions savings of 13.6 million tonnes set out in the National Climate Change Strategy, this year's carbon budget presented further savings of 600,000 tonnes. Future carbon budgets will present the effects of further measures, with the intention that Ireland is able to fulfil its commitments as far as possible by emissions reductions through domestic action and therefore achieve the 3% annual reduction on average between now and 2012.