John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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1052. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the amount by which Ireland will fail to meet the 2020 greenhouse gas emission targets (details supplied); the level of fines bugeted for 2020; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36531/18]

Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent)
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I refer to the answer to Questions Nos. 1004, 1007 and 1023  of 12 June 2018. Ireland’s commitments under the second period of the Kyoto Protocol, (2013-2020), will be discharged via the 2009 EU Effort Sharing Decision 406/2009/EC (ESD). The ESD established annual emission limits for the period 2013 to 2020 for each EU Member State. For the year 2020 itself, the target set for Ireland is that emissions should be 20% below their value in 2005. This is jointly the most demanding 2020 reduction target allocated under the ESD, and one shared only by Denmark and Luxembourg.  The latest projections of greenhouse gas emissions, published by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in May 2018, indicate that emissions from those sectors of the economy covered by the ESD could be between 0% and 1% below 2005 levels by 2020.

While this is very disappointing, it is not surprising given the recent pace of economic growth, and the consequent increases in emissions from the agriculture and transport sectors in particular. The projected shortfall to our targets is further exacerbated by both the constrained investment capacity over the past decade due to the economic crisis, and the extremely challenging nature of the target itself. In fact, it is now accepted that Ireland’s 2020 target was not consistent with what would be achievable on an EU wide cost-effective basis.

The ESD includes a number of flexibility mechanisms to enable Member States to meet their annual emissions targets, including provisions to bank any excess allowances to future years and to trade allowances between Member States. Using banked emissions allocations from the period to 2015, Ireland is projected to comply with its emissions reduction targets in each of the years 2013 to 2017. However, cumulative emissions are projected to exceed annual targets for 2018, 2019 and 2020, which will result in a requirement to purchase additional allowances.  While this purchasing requirement is not, at this stage, expected to be significant, further analysis is ongoing to quantify the likely costs involved, in light of the final amount and price of allowances required.