Govt urged not to waste tax payers' money 'buying carbon credits overseas'
The government has today (Tuesday, March 4) been urged to "invest in Ireland" to achieve its climate targets and not to waste "billions of euros of taxpayers’ money buying carbon credits overseas".
According to a new joint report published today (Tuesday, March 4) by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and Climate Change Advisory Council (CCAC) Ireland is facing “staggering payments” of between €8 and €26 billion to other European Union member states if climate targets are missed.
The report, ‘A colossal missed opportunity’, sets out potential costs for Ireland from missing agreed EU targets.
In the past four years, Ireland has lost out on €500 million of potential revenue from carbon credits it was entitled to sell, according to the report.
The environmental campaign group, Friends of the Earth, today called on the government to accelerate climate action instead of "buying carbon credits overseas in a few years time".
Friends of the Earth, chief executive, Oisín Coghlan, said: "If the government fails to act decisively the report estimates that the bill facing taxpayers could be as high as this year’s health budget, €26 billion, or 12 children’s hospitals.
"Does any minister or government TD think it would make sense to give that money to Spain, Greece or Portugal to buy carbon credits rather than take action now at home?"
Oisín Coghlan also warned that even if the government were to do everything in the Climate Action Plan, the new report "suggests we will still end up spending €8 billion overseas on carbon credits, more than four times the annual agriculture budget or 24 Dáil bike sheds".
“Here’s the question for ministers.
"Are they saying Irish taxpayers have to fork our billions of euro in fines so Amazon can run it’s AI in Ireland and agri-business can sell more baby milk powder to China? he also asked.
Separately the Social Democrats today also described Ireland's Climate Action Plan as "a failure" and warned that "a major financial fall" could be in the pipeline for the country.
Social Democrats TD Jennifer Whitmore said: "It is now seven years since former Taoiseach Leo Varadkar admitted Ireland was a climate laggard. At the time, we were ranked last in Europe when it came to climate action.
“Since then, we have declared a climate and biodiversity emergency, while signing up to legally binding climate action targets".
“However, this has not made a difference, with confirmation today that Ireland, per capita, has the highest emissions target gap of any EU member state".
