Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 30 Jan 2002

Vol. 547 No. 1

Written Answers. - Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Enda Kenny

Ceist:

706 Mr. Kenny asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the percentage which the estimated use of coal and petcoke in rural Ireland would represent of the requirement to reduce sulphur dioxide from bituminous coal and petcoke by 2010; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2832/02]

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. D. Wallace)

EU Directive 2001/81/EC sets Ireland's national emission ceiling for sulphur dioxide for 2010 at 42 kt. The UNECE Gothenburg Protocol to the Convention on Long Range Transboundary Air Pollution to Abate Acidification, Eutrophication and Ground Level Ozone sets the same ceiling. This represents a 76% reduction on 1990 levels.

The public consultation paper on the potential national ban on bituminous coal and petcoke, which was issued by my Department in October 2001 and a copy of which is available in the Oireachtas Library, estimates that a national ban on bituminous coal and petcoke would result in a reduction of emissions of sulphur dioxide of 6.5 kt approximately halving the emissions from the residential sector. It is not possible to give an esti mate of the percentage of this reduction which would relate to rural Ireland.