Colm McCarthy: What planet are leaders on when shaping emissions policy?

Colm McCarthy

Street art in Glasgow, COP26’s host city. Picture by Jeff J Mitchell

Colm McCarthy

Street art in Glasgow, COP26’s host city. Picture by Jeff J Mitchell

Colm McCarthy

November 01 2021 10:45 AM

It has been clear since the 1990s that worldwide emissions of greenhouse gases, of which carbon dioxide is the most important, would have to fall in the medium term if damaging climate consequences were to be avoided. Instead, they have risen, most dramatically in countries outside Europe. The scale of required adjustment has risen and the time available to face the music has diminished. It is no longer credible that minor and gentle changes will suffice, and the burden of adjustment has been permitted to rise.

Sharing that burden has been addressed at a series of UN-sponsored summits, the latest of which convenes today in Glasgow. They have failed, and the sources of failure have long been evident. The planet has just one atmosphere but has 200 governments. Each has an incentive to urge emission reduction on others and the formula chosen 30 years ago, the allocation of voluntary emission targets country-by-country, was predicted to fail.

Emissions in Ireland rose steadily from 1990, the base year for the early UN efforts at targeting, until about 15 years ago. They have since fallen significantly and last year were just 6pc above the 1990 figure. But the population rose by 42pc over that period so per capita emissions have declined by a quarter.

Most European countries have seen static, and even falling, populations over recent decades. Worldwide emissions meanwhile rose by a half, driven by dramatic economic expansion in Asia, as world population grew more slowly, from 5.3 billion to 7.8 billion. Per capita emissions for the world rose by around 70pc, while they fell by a quarter in Ireland. They fell too around Europe, as wind power replaced oil and coal in power generation, cars became more fuel-efficient and heavy industry migrated to Asia.

The perception that Ireland is a laggard in emission reduction is exaggerated, which is not to say that more could not have been achieved. The three high-emission turf stations now in the process of closure, for example, were built long after the red flag had been raised.

The Government, in the report of the Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) released last week, has accepted the quantitative targets laid down at EU level and will now seek to allocate them across sectors of the Irish economy and society.

These allocations are already controversial and will become more so as actual policies replace targets. Passive acceptance of EU emission limits by any member state makes sense only if those limits have been arrived at in a coherent fashion. These limits, notably in the case of agriculture, have been arrived at in an opaque manner and it is a puzzle why Irish ministers down the years have gone along with them.

There are two problems with the limits to farming emissions, only one of which merits a mention in the CCAC report.

The first and most egregious is that most farm output is exported. Responsibility for emissions is best attributed to the country or territory of consumption — emissions from petrol or diesel consumed in Ireland are not attributed to Saudi Arabia, nor are emissions from coal burnt at Moneypoint debited to the producing countries. The British or German consumer of Irish dairy products can enjoy the butter and cheese secure in the knowledge the emissions are someone else’s problem, not their reaction at the forecourt, where petrol and diesel face high consumer taxes in both jurisdictions.

Emissions need to be measured consistently if they are to provide an economically efficient basis for climate policy. The regime in place is an arbitrary mishmash of measures based on consumption for some sectors and on production for others, to the disadvantage of efficient exporters.

The EU is currently contemplating special measures to deal with this anomaly, called carbon leakage, in the case of some manufactured products.

There is no point cutting emissions in any country if they get redirected somewhere else. European emissions have fallen less than appears to be the case as heavy industry has been displaced to Asia, which bears the emissions as measured. But the emissions attaching to dairy production have been neatly palmed off on those EU members best placed to deliver what the market demands, in the absence of any disincentives to consumption in importing countries.

It is notable the 97-page CCAC report contains no reference to this elephant in the room of EU policy, an issue which has dominated the critiques of economists, who favour consumption-based measurement, with carbon taxes, over quantitative ceilings.

There is a further source of grievance about the measurement of farm emissions. Most of these arise from livestock farming and consist of methane rather than carbon dioxide. They are different. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas and pumping out more has an early, and entirely unwelcome, impact on concentrations in the atmosphere. But it dissipates quickly, in about 12 years according to the experts, as against a century and more for carbon dioxide. If herd numbers are contained around current levels, the long-run impact on atmospheric concentrations dies off — not the case with emissions from fossil fuels.

The CCAC has recommended, to comply with EU targets, a course of action requiring an actual reversal of the recent rise in the dairy herd. This was a response to the lifting of milk quotas in 2015, designed by the EU to favour production in countries like Ireland at the expense of those less favourably endowed and welcomed by Irish politicians at the time.

Reducing dairy output in Ireland, with no policies to restrain consumption internationally, runs the risk of encouraging expansion in locations where soil and climate are less favourable, reversing the 2015 intention.

There is every likelihood that the COP26 conference will disappoint yet again. The architecture based on country-by-country quantitative limits rather than carbon taxes recognises the sovereignty of nations but ignores the incentives for compliance. Only if each country was a planet with its very own atmosphere would current incentives match the challenge.

Colm McCarthy: What planet are leaders on when shaping emissions policy?

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