Ireland is facing massive fines for failing to tackle greenhouse-gas levels, the Green Party warned last night.
Commenting on the Central Statistics Office (CSO) report revealing that emission levels were running far ahead of Government targets agreed under the Kyoto Protocol, the party said it was barely scratching the surface in implementing policies needed to ensure the country's international obligations are met.
The Green Party TD, Mr Dan Boyle, said that if the Government failed to meet its targets under the protocol within the next eight years, the country faced the imposition of massive fines of around €20 per tonne for emissions over and above the levels set out in the agreement.
Mr Boyle said that the Environmental Protection Agency had told a Dáil committee in February that, based on the 2001 emission figures of 31 per cent above the 1990 levels, the country faced fines of up to €1.2 billion.
However, the Government has insisted that greenhouse gas emission levels are reducing.
The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said that provisional figures for 2003 - a year later than the report published by the Central Statistics Office yesterday - would show that greenhouse gas emission levels were now down to 24.7 per cent above the 1990 figure.
"This is progress on our Kyoto path, but much more needs to be done to ensure that we meet our national target of 13 per cent by 2012", Mr Cullen said.
Ireland still faced significant challenges in meeting this target and policies and measures would need to be implemented as current and projected economic growth acted to increase emissions across the economy into the future.
Mr Boyle said that greenhouse-gas levels in Ireland were currently 225 per cent of what the Government had promised to meet under the Kyoto Protocol.
The increases in the industry and transport sectors were worrying and could be attributed to the failure of the Government to introduce fiscal measures such as carbon taxes which would discourage such unwelcome developments.
In the report published yesterday, the Central Statistics Office said that emission levels in 2002, although down slightly on the previous year, were significantly higher than the targets set at Kyoto.
"Clearly, as identified in the National Climate Change Strategy, significant remedial measures are required to meet our commitments," it said.
