Ireland’s airports and cement plants have been ranked as its top greenhouse gas pollution sites.

Global data on the world, and Ireland’s, largest greenhouse gas emitters shows that these locations, along with several large cargo ships, populate the Irish top 50.

Dublin Airport leads the list of Ireland’s worst polluters, releasing over 1m tonnes of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere last year alone.

Meanwhile, not one farm, food processor or agri-food company was included in the top 50 list, revealed at COP27 this week.

The independent data which has ranked Ireland’s top polluters was collected by 300 EU, American and Chinese satellites, more than 11,000 land, air and sea-based sensors, as well as the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The findings were published by an organisation called Climate Trace at COP27 in Egypt this week.

Airports

Almost all of Ireland’s airports feature in the list of top 50 emitters of greenhouses gases in Ireland.

Following Dublin Airport’s position as the worst polluter, Shannon Airport was ranked ninth with 51,000t of greenhouse gases emitted in 2021, Cork Airport came 12th with 18,000t emitted, Knock Airport was 22nd with 8,500t and Donegal Airport rounded out the top 50 with a little over 1,000t.

Four of Ireland’s cement plants featured in the top 50, all within the top 10 with Drogheda Cement Plant following Dublin Airport in second place. The Co Louth facility released over 983,000t of greenhouse gases last year.

Some 35 cargo ships were also included in Ireland's list of 50 worst greenhouse gas polluters. \ Donal O'Leary

Third is the cement plant at Ballyconnell in Co Cavan. It was the source of almost 955,000t of greenhouse gas emissions last year.

By far the largest contingent in the polluter top 50 was cargo ships with some 35 of these listed by using the independently verified data. The top cargo ship polluter was the ‘Arklow Spray’ which emitted 19,000t of greenhouse gases last year.

Dublin Airport

The Dublin Airport Authority (DAA) challenged the credibility of Climate Trace’s data and said it and its aviation partners that operate from the airport are “absolutely committed to playing our part to help Ireland meet its carbon emissions reduction targets”.

A spokesperson claimed that Dublin Airport was the first airport in Ireland to achieve “carbon neutral status” and said that it did so following an “extensive programme of activities to reduce and offset its carbon emissions in recent years”.

“The airport reduced its carbon footprint by 12% between 2018 and 2019 and reduced its overall carbon emissions by 25% between 2013 and 2019, despite a 63% increase in passenger numbers during the same period. The accreditation was based on data from 2019 pre-COVID-19.

“As a commercial semi-State company, DAA has a firm target to reduce our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 51% by 2030, in-line with Government-set public sector targets.

“Additionally, we are working towards a commitment to achieve net zero emissions from our operations by 2050, or sooner,” the spokesperson said.