Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)
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515. To ask the Minister for Communications, Climate Action and Environment the top 100 companies with the highest emissions. [47203/19]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) is a cornerstone of the European Union's policy to combat climate change and its key tool for reducing industrial greenhouse gas emissions cost-effectively. It is the biggest international system for trading greenhouse gas emission allowances and covers more than 11,000 power stations and industrial plants in 31 countries, as well as airlines.The system covers emissions of carbon dioxide from power and heat generation and a wide range of energy-intensive industry sectors including oil refineries, steel works, and production of iron, aluminium, metals, cement, lime, glass, ceramics, pulp, paper, cardboard, acids and bulk organic chemicals. Nitrous oxide emissions from the production of certain acids and emissions of perfluorocarbons from aluminium production are also included.

An installation is a single stationary technical unit where one or more activities listed under the ETS Directive are carried out. A company/operator may have a number of installations included in the ETS. In Ireland, 75 stationary operators and 13 aircraft operators are included under the scheme. These operate a 104 total installations.

The European Union Transaction Log is the public register of ETS licensees which provides verified emissions figures by Permit ID/Installation. The total verified emissions for each operator is displayed in the following table.

In relation to air travel, while reported by the EPA as a 'memo' item, emissions associated with international aviation emissions are not included in Ireland’s national emissions reported to the UNFCCC, or under Ireland's non-ETS targets under the EU Effort Sharing Decision. Domestic aviation emissions are included in Ireland’s national total for UNFCCC purposes.

Within the EU, CO2 emissions from aviation have been included in the EU ETS since 2013. The legislation applies to emissions from flights from, to and within the European Economic Area (EEA), EU Member States, plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway. In light of the adoption of a Resolution by the 2016 ICAO Assembly to implement a Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) from 2020, the EU has decided that the geographic scope of the EU ETS be limited to intra-EEA flights from 2017 onwards.