Climate Change Policy

Climate change policy and renewable energy policy are vital tools in combating global warming.[Global Policy Documents][Kyoto Protocol]

Global

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC).

Reports

1. The first IPPC report in 1990 outlined risks of warming and played a role in prompting governments to agree a 1992 UN climate convention that set a non-binding goal of stabilising greenhouse gases at 1990 levels by 2000.The target was not met.
2. In 1995 the IPPC concluded that "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate". That report helped pave the way for the UN’s Kyoto Protocol in 1997, which obliges 35 industrial nations to cut greenhouse gases to 5 per cent below 1990 levels by 2008-12.
3. The 2001 study said there was "new and stronger evidence" linking human activities to rising temperatures.
4. The 2007 report was 90% certain that climate change may have been caused by man. In the next ten years we have to achieve serious reductions in carbon emissions. The report calls for a reduction in annual emissions from just under 50 billion tons of greenhouse gases today to 5 billion to 10 billion or less by 2050, so that the planet warms by no more than two degrees centigrade.
5. The 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference confirms that worst case IPCC scenario trajectories are being realised. "Tough targets for emissions cuts from 2020-50 must be set or risk crossing irreversible climate tipping points".

Europe

The EU has taken a particularly prominent position in the series of climate change negotiations aimed at agreeing international policy on action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Union’s current overall target is for a 30% reduction in CO² emissions from their 1990 level by 2020 with specific targets set for each member state. [EU Policy Documents]

Ireland [Irish Policy Documents]

1. Ireland is among the world’s top producers of greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
2. Ireland’s plan for changing the levels of greenhouse gasses emitted to the atmosphere is set out in the National Climate Change Strategy. As part of the EU target, Ireland has agreed to limit the growth of greenhouse gas emissions to 13% above 1990 levels by 2008-2012.
3. Under the Kyoto protocol Ireland is legally obliged to keep greenhouse gas emissions to just over 63 million tonnes per annum from 2008 to 2012.

Ireland’s target in relation to the Kyoto Protocol is to limit emissions to 13% above the baseline estimate in the period 2008-2012. Based on the latest inventory figures, Ireland’s emissions in 2006 were 25.5% higher than the baseline estimate that underlies Ireland’s allowable emissions for the period 2008-2012, as agreed in the peer review of Ireland’s 2006 submission to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC). The latest data indicate that emissions of greenhouse gases in Ireland in 2006 were 69.77million tonnes (Mt) of CO² equivalent. Emissions of carbon dioxide (CO²) from fossil fuel combustion accounted for 64% of total greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 compared to 54% in 1990.

The principal measures in energy supply to meet the targets are:

1. 15% of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2010 and 33% by 2020.
2. Biomass to contribute up to 30% of energy input at peat stations by 2015.
3. Support of Combined Heat and Power projects.
4. National Ocean Energy Strategy.

The White Paper sets out the Government’s Energy Policy Framework 2007-2020 to deliver a sustainable energy future for Ireland.

The National Development Plan 2007-2013 fully reflects the strategic role of energy in underpinning the state’s overall social and economic objectives.