Green Party/Comhaontas Glas

Submission to the Review of the

National Climate Change Strategy

30^th September 2006 

Cllr David Healy, Ciaran Cuffe TD, Eamon RyanTD

Dail Eireann, Kildare Street, Dublin 2

Contents:

          Introduction 

Planning

                   Transport Sector

                   Building Standards

                   Existing buildings 

                   Energy Sector

                   Agriculture    

Introduction  

The Green Party believes National Climate Change Strategy needs to move beyond consideration of how we meet our obligations under the Kyoto agreement.   We believe our strategy should be set to allow us  meet the real reductions in Greenhouse Gases that the scientific community are saying we will have to make in response to the  Climate Change Crisis we face.

A scientific consensus has grown in recent years that a 50% cut in global emissions from 1990 base year levels is needed by the middle of this century if we are to avoid dangerous anthropogenic climate change. 

Any international agreement to meet such a target is likely to call on reductions of between 60% to 80% in developed countries such as our own.  This is because we have historically been responsible for most of the emissions and therefore share a greater responsibility in providing the solutions.

Such reductions will require radical changes within our society but it will also bring social and economic as well as environmental benefits.   It makes sense to start our progress on these targets now as the investment decisions we make today will set our use of energy for the rest of this century.

In the past we have make similar radical changes in direction.  In the nineteen fifties we changed from a following a closed to an open economy policy.   In the late 1980s we turned around a near bankrupt economy through a period of rigid fiscal cutbacks.  On both occasions the existence of a broad political consensus on the direction we were taking helped us achieve the desired changes.   

The Green Party is now looking for similar cross party consensus on the long term Greenhouse gas reductions we need to make and the annual increments needed to meet the long term target.    We believe that the budgetary policy should be amended each year to insure that any deficit in reaching the previous years target would be reversed.    

Since our emissions come mainly from our use of energy in heating, transport and power generation and from Agriculture, this short submission to the National Climate Change Strategy review restricts itself to suggesting some positive policy approaches which we believe could help cut our emissions in these crucial areas.

Planning

Ireland’s pattern of development over the last thirty years has contributed significantly to the increase in Greenhouse Gas emissions. Long distance car commuting has increased frequently in recent years and more girls now drive to school than cycle.  The increase in urban sprawl needs to be counteracted by a planning system that allows people to live work and relax in closer proximity to other than previously. The Green Party believes that the following planning measures are required to reduce Ireland’s Greenhouse Gas emissions:

• The National Spatial Strategy needs to be revised in order to limit urban sprawl. There may be greater capacity for the larger towns and cities (other than Dublin) to cater for growth and development. There is also untapped potential for smaller towns and villages to accommodate growth.

• The Decentralisation Programme needs to be dropped and replaced by a process of Central and Local Government reform that gives regions stronger control over their management and development. This may be provided for by devolving powers to Regional Authorities.

• Local Area Plans (LAPs) should be used to provide clear three-dimensional plans for future development. The LAP process as specified in the 2000 Planning and Development Act can provide for greater community participation in the making of such plans.

• Greater emphasis needs to be placed on providing for mixed-use development. The use of zoning needs to be reviewed it can increase transport demand.

• Clear provision for environmentally sustainable transport methods needs to made in Development Plans. This can include provision for pedestrian and cycling priority in traffic management as well as ensuring that more vulnerable road users such as children; the elderly and those with mobility impairments are adequately provided for.

Transport

In Ireland, the fastest growing and most significant long term trend of increased emissions is in the transport sector. Over the last 15 years our use of energy in transport has increased by some 150%, with emissions increasing from 4.5 million tonnes to 15.2 million tonnes of CO2 over the same period. The transport sector now accounts for 33% of Ireland’s primary energy demand, almost all of which is derived from the burning of fossil fuels.  This problem has worsened as the average fuel efficiency of our vehicles and the share of public transport in the modal split has decreased in recent years.

Reducing emissions from the transport sector is therefore one of the primary objectives of the National Climate Change Strategy. Reductions in transport emissions can be broadly achieved in two ways: by reducing the overall amount of commuting, and by fundamentally reorganising the transport modal in favour of public transport walking and cycling. This two-pronged approach can be realised through implementation of the following measures:  

1. Under the current National Development plan capital spending on roads has typically been three to four times greater than the amounts spent on public transport.  This imbalance must to be reversed. The Green party would committee to the ten year budget allocation of €34 billion within the Transport 21 plan but we would reallocate the spending within that budget to allow for additional public transport projects to be completed.  

2. This reallocation of the budget would allow for a major re-investment programme in new railways, including light rail lines in Dublin Cork, and Galway and the immediate construction of new mainline rail connections to  Shannon, Navan and Tuam.

3. Under the auspices of the new bus regulator, a radical overhaul of both public and private bus services would be undertaken allied to the delivery of new quality bus corridors and sufficient bus services to provide new high frequency bus timetables. We also need a major new investment in new rural community bus services.

4. A new National Transport Authority should be created, which will work with local councils on the strategic planning, the regulation and the procurement of much needed transport services and carbon reduction strategies in transport.

5. We would immediately reform the motor taxation system, such that current VRT and vehicle taxes would be replaced in a revenue neutral manner with a tax graded on the greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

6. We would introduce ‘safe routes to school’ programmes, as well as new traffic calmed areas in cities and towns across the country to promote cycling and walking. A new national cycleway network should also be constructed.

7. We would work with the European Union to insure that aviation and all other transport modes are included within the Emissions trading scheme so that environmental costs of flying are included in the cost of flying.  Such a scheme could allocate an individual travel carbon quota for travel to every citizen in the Union and charges on the suppliers of transport fuels rather than on the individual transport companies.      Such a new scheme within the emissions trading scheme could be seen as a working model for the introduction of a wider multilateral carbon allocation per capita  and contraction scheme.    

Building Standards

In Ireland 40% of energy is consumed by commercial and domestic buildings. Approximately 70% of this energy is used in space and water heating energy requirements. Currently the Irish housing stock of  1.86 million units have a kWh/m2 of between 200 and 300. Without imposing excess costs this figure could be reduced to 50 kWh/m2. However, to achieve this Building Regulations would need to be changed.

• Building Regulations should be revised immediately to require that U-values for new homes have floors, walls and roofs with U-values of 0.2, 0.2 and 0.15 respectively. U-values for floors, walls and roofs in the current building regulations are currently 0.37, 0.37 and 0.25 respectively. Materials currently exist that could reduce these values without great cost implications.

• Building Regulations should be revised so that all new boilers have to be (UK SEDBUK equivalent) rated A or B boilers, which would mean that they have to have energy efficiency ratios of 84% and 92%. Currently, standard boilers have an energy efficiency rating of 55-65%.

• The Green Party has been working in Fingal, DunLaoghaire Rathdown and Wicklow County Councils on the development of new energy standards for new buildings which set heating standards 60% above national building regulations and a requirement that  30% of space and water heating requirements from renewable sources such as solar.   We would introduce these standards nationwide to achieve dramatic reductions in emissions and in heating and electricity bills.

Existing Housing Stock

Unfortunately, given the level of construction that has taken place over the last number of years (up 86, 000 new housing units in 2005 for example), the above measures or even full and early implementation of Part L, would have had a huge impact on Ireland’s emissions. The retro-fitting of our now much larger housing stock will be much more expensive than it would have been to implement energy efficient Building Standards at construction phase. To deal with the energy efficiency of our existing housing stock we would introduce a number of measures:  

• BER ratings on homes put for sale or rent (required to be implemented under Energy Performance Directive by 2009) will raise awareness but of itself it is unlikely to achieve the significant improvements required.  Ireland will need to go further than Energy Performance Directive requirements. All homes put for sale or rent will not only need to BER rated but will need to be required to bring its BER rating up to sufficient a BER rating before it can be sold or rent.

• At present energy efficiency inspections by building control officers from local authorities are all but none existent. This needs to change immediately. While changes to be introduced under Part L are likely to help in this regard there will still be a great need for all new buildings and buildings being offered for sale to be inspected by local authority building control officers.

• We would provide for a ‘one stop shop’ system where the building services needed to provide greater energy efficiency in different categories and styles of existing dwellings would be available in a standardised package.  This would bring down the per unit costs of making changes such as re-insulating walls or windows.  It would also reduce the technical uncertainty and logistical challenge that existing householders have in trying to find out for themselves the appropriate measures that can be undertaken.

The Energy Sector

From 1990 to 2004 the Irish economy grew by some 140% while our CO2 emissions from the energy sector grew by 45%.  This decoupling was a result of the changing structure of the Irish economy and the introduction of energy efficient technologies.    

The opportunity for a further rapid decoupling of economic growth and environmental protection is shown by the fact that we are still loosing as much energy in wasted heat from power generation (three million tonnes of oil equivalent) as is used in the entire residential sector.  

The approach to reducing emissions in the energy sector should proceed along two lines: firstly, we need to reduce our overall primary energy requirement and secondly we need to switch to lower or zero-emission sources of energy.  

1. Introduce new energy efficiency technologies. These would include clever metering and electronic switching, similar to the 'seasonal time of day' metering system in Northern Ireland, which allows consumption patterns to be tracked and beneficial patterns of consumption to be rewarded. New digital meters should also give full credit to power generated by consumers themselves. There is also a need for smart switching devices, which turn off unnecessary appliances at times of peak electricity demand and possibly turn on small domestic combined heat and power devices. This would feed power back into the grid, obviating the need to keep really expensive fossil fuel power plants on standby.

2. Move to a 'distributed' energy grid, similar to the current British model. This involves a switch from promoting energy flows from a few major centres to the periphery, to a system where power is generated by a large number of small-scale localised centres and used locally.

3. Reform the taxation system. As well as introducing grants to promote selected renewable technologies, we should be looking at broader incentives which leave the selection of technological solutions to the market . This can be achieved by implementing the measures such as a carbon levy as proposed by the ESRI, which will reduce VAT and employment taxes and increase social welfare contributions to combat fuel poverty.  The 30% renewable heating requirement included by Green Party councillors in new local area plans also allow individual householders and energy service suppliers the freedom to decide on the most suitable technologies.

4. Over the last six years we have introduced some 2250 MW of new Gas fired power stations but only 600MW of new wind farms.   Even if we double the level of wind power in the next four years it will still be a fraction of the additional 1200MW of gas fired power we are likely to build over the same period.   We should instead be looking to the example of the Swedish Government who are turning to biomass power plants to provide the equivalent generating power of three nuclear power plants  over the next 15years.  This linked to further expansion of the wind industry and the development of new wave and tidal technologies should allow us exceed the 30% renewables target within electricity generation being set by this Government.

5. Once the waiving of duty on biofuel crops has helped to establish a biofuels industry, we should look to replace that support mechanism with a percentage biofuels supply requirement on wholesale oil companies. 

6. We would ensure that the state agencies Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, work together to support firms likely to reduce fossil fuel imports into the country. The remit of Science Foundation Ireland needs to be expanded to include sustainable energy research as a third category area.

Agriculture

The agriculture sector is responsible for 29% of our overall emissions, making it the largest single largest contributor to Ireland’s growing emissions. Reducing the emissions produced by agricultural processes, which consist mainly of the non-CO2 greenhouse gases N2O and CH4, is an essential action area of the National Climate. Nonetheless, it is also important to consider the positive contribution the sector can make to the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions through carbon sinks and carbon-neutral activities.

The focus of the Climate Change Strategy should therefore be on both the mitigation of processes that are producing emissions and on developing activities that absorb or neutralise emissions. The Green Party believes that the following measures should be adopted in order to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions:

1.     Support the decoupling of agricultural support from production in order to reduce the number of livestock numbers

2.     Complete the permanent destocking arrangements established for commonages in the final Commonage Framework Plans introduced in 2002.

3.     Encourage the adoption of higher value-added farming products and processes, which promote lower stocking rate, minimise input and maximise profit along the length of the production chain.

4.     Fully implement and enforce the provisions of the EU Nitrates Directive, which will ensure a more efficient use of nitrogenous fertiliser and to a reduction in N2O emissions.

5.     Under the auspices of Teagasc, further research into the improvement of fertility levels in the dairy herd, grazing techniques and pasture management in both dairying and beef systems, and manure management practices. Funding should also be provided for research into the identification of the sources of GHG's from agriculture,  and the most environmentally sustainable management systems

6.     Promote and increase the uptake of agriculture technologies that increase productivity and efficiency and reduce inputs. Support should also be provided to facilitate the transition to GHG-neutral and lower-emission  processes, such as the production of ethanol from cellulose

7.     Expand the planting of shelterbelts and riparian buffer strips as well as the rollout of increased carbon sequestration in soils.  The Green Party would also look to insure that the Governments own target planting of 20,000 hectares of forest per annum is meet.